Posts Tagged: "Carr v. Saul"

Saul v. Carr: The SCOTUS Social Security Decision Patent Practitioners Should Read

On April 22, 2021, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Carr v. Saul, which dealt with a constitutional Appointments Clause challenge to Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) under the Social Security Administration (SSA). In particular, the issue in Carr was whether claimants for disability benefits had forfeited their Appointments Clause challenges by failing to raise those constitutional challenges before the agency. The Supreme Court has now ruled that the claimants’ challenges were not forfeited. The decision favoring the claimants was unanimous, although the Court was not quite unanimous on the legal bases for the ruling. The question to be addressed in this essay is what effect, if any, Carr has on practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); and in particular, whether constitutional challenges must be raised before the agency lest those challenges be forfeited.