Sansone v. USPTO — Federal Circuit Rejects Pro Se Inventor’s Civil Rights Claims Over Rejected Patent Application

Background

On January 23, 2019, Stanley A. Sansone of Houston, Texas filed U.S. Patent Application No. 16/255,511 for a wearable thermal device. The USPTO examiner rejected all claims. Sansone appealed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which affirmed the rejection. After requesting continued examination, the examiner issued a second non-final rejection, followed by a second final rejection after another amendment. The PTAB affirmed again on July 19, 2023.

Rather than pursuing further appeal through the standard patent prosecution channels, Sansone filed suit against the USPTO and its Director, John A. Squires (Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property), in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He alleged that patent examiners had unlawfully conspired to falsify the administrative record in order to reject his application. His complaints asserted civil rights violations under 42 U.S.C. §§  1983 and 1985, claims under various criminal statutes, Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) violations, and constitutional challenges to both the Patent Act of 1836 and the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA).

Sansone also sought extraordinary relief: a writ of mandamus ordering the USPTO Director to place his patent application in condition for allowance and grant the patent with a 5.5-year term extension, and a request that the Federal Circuit certify issues to the Supreme Court. Judge Rossie David Alston, Jr. dismissed all claims and denied summary judgment. Sansone appealed.

The Court’s Holding

The Federal Circuit (Judges Reyna, Mayer, and Hughes, per curiam) affirmed the dismissal in full, with no costs awarded.

The panel found that the “record falsification” allegations amounted to nothing more than disagreement with the examiners’ factual findings on prior art. As the court observed, “[a] party’s disagreement with an agency’s factual findings does not transform those findings into record falsification.” The claims predicated on 35 U.S.C. § 103 (obviousness) were based on an “indisputably meritless legal theory” rooted in misunderstandings of patent law. The criminal statutes cited by Sansone — used as a basis for civil liability — provide no private right of action and no waiver of sovereign immunity. The FTCA claims and remaining allegations were similarly deficient.

The constitutional arguments about the Patent Act of 1836 and the AIA were not raised in the district court and therefore could not be addressed on appeal. In any event, the court noted that the constitutionality of PTAB under the AIA was upheld by the Supreme Court in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 584 U.S. 325 (2018).

The mandamus request was denied because Sansone “has not made the showing required to qualify for mandamus relief” — mandamus is a “drastic remedy that must be reserved for extraordinary situations.” The certiorari request was declined as outside the court’s authority.

Key Takeaways

• Civil rights statutes (42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985) do not provide a private right of action against the USPTO over patent examination decisions. Federal agencies are protected by sovereign immunity unless Congress has expressly waived it.
• Disagreement with a patent examiner’s factual findings on prior art is not “record falsification.” Inventors who believe their prior art analysis is wrong must challenge it through the administrative record.
• Criminal statutes do not create implied civil causes of action against federal agencies.
• The proper path for challenging USPTO rejections is: PTAB appeal → Federal Circuit review of the patent prosecution record. Civil litigation is not an end-run around this process.
• Mandamus relief requires showing a clear and indisputable right — routine disagreement with patent prosecution decisions does not meet this threshold.

Why It Matters

Inventor frustration with the patent examination process is real, and pro se inventors sometimes turn to civil litigation when they believe the system has failed them. But the Federal Circuit’s decision reinforces a clear principle: the patent prosecution system has defined channels for challenging rejections, and those channels must be followed. Civil rights claims, tort theories, and constitutional challenges to the patent examination process itself are almost certainly dead ends.

Practically, this means that inventors whose applications are rejected should work with a registered patent practitioner to build the strongest possible prosecution record, seek continued examination if appropriate, and — if the rejection is ultimately upheld by the PTAB — appeal on the merits to the Federal Circuit with a properly developed record. The resources spent on civil litigation in cases like this almost never succeed and divert attention from the actual patent issues.