Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a series of blog posts discussing “whether the Federal Circuit is an outlier among the circuit courts in its use of mandamus”;
- an article discussing how “patent owners must maximize their chances of success” before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board given the Federal Circuit’s affirmance rate; and
- another article detailing how “[a] group of steel importers made their latest bid to overturn Trump-era national security tariffs.”
Jonas Anderson, Paul Gugliuzza, and Jason Rantanen recently authored two posts on PatentlyO addressing their “new research project on mandamus practice in the federal courts of appeals generally and the Federal Circuit’s peculiar use of mandamus in patent cases specifically.” Anderson, Gugliuzza, and Rantanen’s initial post “aims to answer whether the Federal Circuit is an outlier among the circuit courts in its use of mandamus, and if so, what explains the court’s apparent infatuation with mandamus?” Their second post provides “further context and detail about the petitions for writs of mandamus at the Federal Circuit.” Anderson, Gugliuzza, and Rantanen explain that, “for petitions for a writ of mandamus involving an issue other than venue, the grant of a writ of mandamus is a rare event. But when venue is at issue, the court has granted petitions at a much higher rate.”
Erin M. Dunston and Stephen E. Murray filed an article with IAM Media analyzing how “[p]atent owners must make the most of their time before the PTAB because appeals from inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews are rarely successful.” Dunston and Murray emphasized that, “[i]n about 74% of cases, every issue addressed at the PTAB is affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.”
Alex Lawson filed an article with Law360 addressing how “[a] group of steel importers made their latest bid to overturn Trump-era national security tariffs Monday, telling the Federal Circuit that the government has misused a Cold War-era law to set the levies in the high-handed fashion of France’s King Louis XIV.” Lawson noted that in this “latest salvo in a long-running battle over presidential tariff power, the importers’ group led by UPS Holdings Inc. told a Federal Circuit panel that the government overstepped its authority.”