Concluding that an organization cannot establish standing to seek prospective relief merely by alleging that it diverted resources in response to challenged conduct, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal of claims brought by inventor-advocacy organizations challenging language on the cover of issued patents because the organizations lacked both organizational and associational standing. US Inventor, Inc. v. Squires, Case No. 24-2378 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 21, 2026) (Moore, Cunningham, Kovner (sitting by designation), JJ.)
The cover of each newly issued patent includes language tracking the Patent Act, stating that the patent “grants to the persons having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the US. Three inventor advocacy organizations – US Inventor, Inventors Association of South Central Kansas, and Inventors Network of Minnesota – sued the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and its acting director, alleging that this language was misleading in light of the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange.
Plaintiffs contended that eBay eliminated any absolute right of a patent owner to exclude others because injunctive relief is no longer automatic upon a finding of infringement. They sought an order requiring the USPTO to change the patent cover language, an injunction prohibiting the USPTO from representing that patent owners possess an unequivocal right to exclude, and a declaration that the existing language is unlawful. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of standing. Plaintiffs appealed.
The Federal Circuit affirmed, concluding that plaintiffs had not adequately alleged a real and immediate threat of future injury sufficient to support prospective injunctive or declaratory relief.
First, the Federal Circuit concluded that plaintiffs lacked organizational standing. An organization suing on its own behalf must satisfy the ordinary requirements of Article III standing, including demonstrating a concrete and imminent threat of future injury. Relying on the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Court explained that an organization does not suffer a cognizable injury merely because challenged conduct causes it to spend additional “time, energy, and resources on advocacy and education.”
Plaintiffs relied on a similar diversion-of-resources theory, alleging that the USPTO’s patent cover language required them to devote resources to educating inventors about the effect of eBay, thereby impairing their ability to pursue their organizational missions. The Federal Circuit found those allegations insufficient.
The Federal Circuit also rejected plaintiffs’ reliance on the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Havens Realty v. Coleman. In Havens, the challenged conduct directly interfered with the organization’s core activities because racial steering practices caused the organization to receive false housing information that it then passed along to home seekers. Here, by contrast, plaintiffs were aware of eBay and therefore were not themselves misled by the patent cover language. Their alleged injury instead arose from their decision to educate unidentified inventors who might misunderstand that language. Rather than alleging that the USPTO directly impeded their core activities, plaintiffs alleged only that they chose to expend resources responding to the challenged conduct, a theory rejected in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
Second, the Federal Circuit concluded that plaintiffs lacked associational standing. An association may invoke a court’s remedial powers on behalf of its members where:
- Its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right;
- The interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and
- Neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires participation of individual members.
US Inventor attempted to establish associational standing through declarations from three inventor-members. Each stated that he or she had been misled by the language on an issued patent but later learned that, under eBay, injunctive relief against an infringer is not guaranteed. The Federal Circuit concluded that those declarations did not establish a sufficient likelihood of future injury because each declarant was now aware of eBay and therefore was unlikely to be misled by the same language again.
The other two plaintiff organizations did not plead associational standing. The Federal Circuit therefore agreed with the district court that associational standing needed to be considered only as to US Inventor.
