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The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the specialized patent appeals court. It was created in 1982. Before that the regular appeals courts heard paten
by WildUtah 11y ago
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the specialized patent appeals court. It was created in 1982. Before that the regular appeals courts heard patent appeals. The idea was that subject matter experts and scientist-judges would be better able to adjudicate complicated patent appeals.
What we got from the CAFC was the explosion of software patents, regular messes of abusive patent rules, an overwhelming bias against small companies accused of infringement by monster corps with patent portfolios, legalization of patents based on abstract ideas, and regular rebukes by the Supreme Court that has to try to rein them in with regular 9-0 decisions that the CAFC then finds ways to ignore.
The problem is that anyone who could get appointed to such a court is probably personally invested in the power of the patent system. His history is probably in mega corps with thousands of patents to block innovative disruptors. Such a judge's future prestige and professional respect is determined by how much he supports omnipotent and unlimited patents with little review of validity.
So these judges are inevitably judging their own careers in every case. They are as biased and corrupt as you might expect anyone to be when asked to judge the limits of his own power and influence.
No. Cases should not be tried by juries of subject matter experts. That just leads to more corruption. We do need better rules that make it harder to abuse the system, but we're better off with ordinary judges and juries making the decisions, even though they sometimes screw it up through ignorance. At least they aren't screwing it up by malice like certain federal judges.
- gohrt 11y agoWhat sort of rules can make it harder to abuse the system, if you insist that the people who enforce the rules must have no understanding of how the rules work?
- nitrogen 11y agoWhat about having juries composed of actual peers? That is, randomly selected experts, half from industry and half from academia? The lack of prolonged engagement and predictable assignment to cases should make it harder to end up with another CAFC.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoThe point is that this leads to corruption. A jury-of-peers reflects and represents wider society. A jury-of-some-selected-close-peers as you are suggesting would not reflect the needs of wider society. Other other hand the broadly selected jury won't be able to understand technical cases. Its 6 one half-a-dozen the other. (UK English expression that means both ways have major flaws and neither is ideal.)
- ownagefool 11y agoScottish here. I'd say that saying actually means both are ultimatly the same, as in they might be difference but they're both equally negative. In this case, it would indeed be refering your assessment that both ways have major flaws and neither is ideal. But the point is, it has a wider meaning that could be invoked when comparing two good outcomes, for example.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ksenzee 11y agoSix of one, half a dozen of the other is also widely used in the US, to mean it doesn't really matter which one you pick because they're pretty much the same.
- nitrogen 11y agoCurrent juries aren't meeting the needs of society, either, so there's not much loss there. We also have the counterbalance of elected representatives, and in the US, sometimes judges are elected, too. Maybe it'd be enough for them to represent society, with juries in technical cases representing accurate justice for the case at hand.
- bshanks 11y agoHow about having half of the jury be randomly chosen individuals (as in the current system), and the other half be randomly chosen experts?