Cite as: 527 U. S. 150 (1999)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
both the patent bench and the patent bar had concluded that the stricter "clearly erroneous" standard was indeed such a requirement placed upon the PTO.* Agency factfinding was thus reviewed under this stricter standard; in my view, properly so, since the APA by its plain text was intended to bring some uniformity to judicial review of agencies by raising the minimum standards of review and not by lowering those standards which existed at the time. Section 12 of the APA, which was ultimately codified as § 559, provided that "[n]othing in this Act shall be held to diminish the constitutional rights of any person or to limit or repeal additional requirements imposed by statute or otherwise recognized by law." Pub. L. 404, 79th Cong., 60 Stat. 244. As a result, we must decide whether the "clearly erroneous" standard was indeed otherwise recognized by law in 1946.
This case therefore turns on whether the 89 or so cases identified by the Court can be read as establishing a requirement placed upon agencies that was more demanding than the uniform minimum standards created by the APA. In making this determination, I would defer, not to agencies in general as the Court does today, but to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the specialized Article III court charged with review of patent appeals. In this case the unanimous en banc Federal Circuit and the patent bar both agree that these cases recognized the "clearly erroneous" standard as an "additional requirement" placed on the PTO beyond the APA's minimum procedures. I see no reason to reject their sensible and plausible resolution of the issue.
Nor do I agree with the Court, ante, at 154-155, that either the plain language of § 559 or the original § 12 impose any sort of "clear statement rule" on the common law. Sec*It appears that even the PTO acquiesced in this interpretation for almost 50 years after the enactment of the APA. See Brief for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America as Amicus Curiae 7, and n. 13 (the PTO first argued for the applicability of the APA's standards of review to its patentability factfinding before the Federal Circuit in 1995).
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