Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:
- a blog post suggesting the “Federal Circuit has become, in the space of two years, one of the most consensus-oriented appellate courts in the federal system”;
- a blog post arguing a recent Federal Circuit decision seemed to deal with a “narrow administrative law issue,” but the “effect of the decision is far broader”;
- an article discussing how USPTO Director John Squires “issued numerous orders . . . holding that patent challenges should not move forward” because the challengers took “inconsistent claim construction positions” in court and at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; and
- an article reporting how “more than 100 companies filed new lawsuits” since the Supreme Court “declared most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs illegal.”
Dennis Crouch penned a blog post for PatentlyO suggesting the “Federal Circuit has become, in the space of two years, one of the most consensus-oriented appellate courts in the federal system.” Crouch explains how Judge Newman had “over 300 dissents in precedential cases in just the final two decades of her tenure alone,” and argues that “Newman’s voice of disagreement defined the Federal Circuit’s internal dialogue on patent law.” Crouch maintains “the practical consequences for patent law” from Judge Newman’s inability to hear patent cases “are real,” because the “Federal Circuit’s precedential output increasingly presents a unified front, and it is harder for parties, for the Supreme Court, and for Congress to identify the fault lines in the court’s jurisprudence from the opinions themselves.”
Joshua Rich penned a blog post for Patent Docs arguing a recent Federal Circuit decision seemed to deal with a “narrow administrative law issue,” but the “effect of the decision is far broader.” According to Rich, the “Federal Circuit’s opinion suggests that the only limitations on the USPTO Director’s discretion in deciding whether to institute post-grant proceedings will be either Constitutional or self-imposed.” As a result, Rich observes, the “end result . . . is that the Director has even more latitude than he did when the case started.” For more information on the case, check out our case page in Apple Inc. v. Squires.
Ryan Davis authored an article for Law360 discussing how USPTO Director John Squires “issued numerous orders . . . holding that patent challenges should not move forward” because the challengers took “inconsistent claim construction positions” in court and at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Davis notes how a practitioner suggested that, while “‘some petitioners might see it as unfair for them at that institution stage, . . . maybe these sorts of decisions can be helpful for arguing why the patent owner is not being true to their constructions.’”
Zoe Tillman and Jeannette Neumann authored an article for Bloomberg reporting how “more than 100 companies filed new lawsuits” since the Supreme Court “declared most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs illegal.” The authors note how the Supreme Court justices “were silent on the refund question, leaving questions of payback to the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade.” According to the authors, President Trump has suggested that “his administration might oppose refunds, or at least not make the process easy for the importers that have paid more than $170 billion in tariffs in the past 10 months.” For more information on the underlying case, check out the case page in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.