Evidence

In Kappos v. Hyatt, the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Circuit's reversal of a Summary Judgment granted to the PTO without review of a declaration filed for the first time in District Court. The Court specifically held that 35 U.S.C. §145 neither imposes unique evidentiary limits in district court proceedings nor establishes a heightened standard of re- view for factual findings by the PTO; neither it nor the APA, nor the principles of administrative exhaustion, prohibit an applicant from introducing new evidence on appeal from the Board of Appeals to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Stated the Court: “Likewise, we conclude that a district court conducting a §145 proceeding may consider “all competent evidence adduced,” id., at 61, and is not limited to considering only new evidence that could not have been presented to the PTO.”

• Summary, discussion