FedCircuitBlog

Late Friday afternoon, the Federal Circuit released an errata. This morning, the Federal Circuit released two precedential opinions, three nonprecedential opinions, and four Rule 36 summary affirmances. Of the two precedential opinions, one comes in Tucker Act case and the other comes in a patent case. Of the nonprecedential opinions, one comes in a takings case, one in a veterans case, and the other is on appeal from the Merit Systems Protection Board. Here are the introductions to the opinions and links to the summary affirmances and errata.

Late yesterday, the Federal Circuit released a nonprecedential order dismissing a case. This morning, the court released three precedential opinions, four nonprecedential opinions, one nonprecedential order, and two Rule 36 summary affirmances. Of the precedential opinions, one comes in a veterans case and two come in patent cases. The nonprecedential opinions all come in cases on appeal from the Merit Systems Protection Board. The lone nonprecedential order dismisses a case. Here are the introductions to the opinions and links to the summary affirmances and dismissals.

This morning the Federal Circuit released one nonprecedential opinion and six nonprecedential orders. The nonprecedential opinion affirms a final decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which denied a request for corrective action under the Whistleblower Protection Act. The nonprecedential orders are all dismissals. Here is the introduction to the opinion and links to the dismissals.

This month we highlight four papers, two related to institutional design and two related to patent law. The first paper addresses the creation of specialized courts and why these courts persist. The second paper focuses on the problem of myopia in comparative institutional analyses of legal institutions and the need to incorporate comparative failure analysis. The third and fourth papers address patent law, respectively, the creation of a database to conduct empirical studies of patent litigation in U.S. district courts, and the U.S. Patent Office’s attempts to provide clarity in the area of patent eligibility through guidance documents.