Mealey's (March 8, 2018, 1:19 PM EST) -- SAN FRANCISCO — Less than one month after oral arguments in a case that pits a patent renewal firm against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 1 directed the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing — among other things — whether the USPTO makes patent files available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)(A)–(E), through its Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) System (Renewal Services Inc. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, No. 16-56088, 9th Cir., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 5322)....