Opinions

Opinions & Orders – March 24, 2022

This morning the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in a patent case appealed from the Western District of Texas. The opinion reversed a finding of invalidity. The court also issued four nonprecedential opinions in patent cases appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Notably, in the fourth case, Judge Prost wrote a concurring opinion to explain that had a patentability challenge been preserved it likely would have succeeded. Finally, the court issued three nonprecedential orders concerning, respectively, a dismissal for failure to prosecute and two voluntary dismissals. Here are the introductions to the opinions and orders.

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Opinions

Opinions & Orders – December 16, 2021

This morning the Federal Circuit issued four nonprecedential opinions. The first two opinions come in cases appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and concern decisions regarding obviousness. The third opinion comes in a case appealed from the District of Minnesota and concerns a grant of summary judgment of no induced infringement. The final opinion comes in an employment case appealed from the Merit Systems Protection Board. Here are the introductions to the opinions.

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Opinions

Opinions & Orders – April 8, 2021

This morning, the Federal Circuit issued four nonprecedential opinions: two in veterans cases both dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, one in a patent case, and one in a case appealed from the Merit Systems Protection Board. The court also issued four Rule 36 judgments. Here are the introductions to the opinions and links to the Rule 36 judgments.

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Scholarship

Recent Scholarship Related to the Federal Circuit

This month we highlight three recent papers addressing the Federal Circuit and the areas of law under its jurisdiction. One paper promotes the idea of allowing agencies, such as Veterans Affairs, to aggregate individual claims, such as through class action lawsuits. Another paper focuses on the impact of the Supreme Court’s affirmance of the Federal Circuit’s conclusion that the statutory ban on registration of immoral marks is unconstitutional. And the third paper proposes that appellate courts defer to jury determinations of fair use of copyrights—a standard of review the Federal Circuit notably did not use in its consideration of the dispute between Google and Oracle now pending at the Supreme Court.

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