SIIA Files Supreme Court Amicus Brief in Tesla v. Granite Vehicle Ventures

SIIA joined a broad coalition of industry groups in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Tesla, Inc. v. Granite Vehicle Ventures, urging the Court to grant certiorari and rein in the USPTO's unlawful rewriting of the inter partes review (IPR) process. The brief argues that the USPTO has effectively overridden Congress's explicit one-year statutory deadline for filing IPR petitions-cutting it to less than four months in many jurisdictions and, in some cases, leaving no time to file at all. Since April 2025, the agency has retroactively applied this shortened timeline to deny hundreds of petitions that were filed within the statutory deadline.

The brief contends that the USPTO's actions are flatly contrary to the America Invents Act, which Congress carefully designed to give patent defendants a meaningful, expert forum for challenging improperly issued patents. SIIA and its co-amici-including the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Business Software Alliance, and others-warn that the Federal Circuit's ruling would afford agencies unchecked discretion to ignore congressionally enacted statutory frameworks. The brief urges the Court to reaffirm that Congress's deadlines mean what they say.