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I like the conclusion of the article, which is that concentrating all patent cases into a single court has given that one court too much power. That particular

I like the conclusion of the article, which is that concentrating all patent cases into a single court has given that one court too much power. That particular court seems heavily pro-business right now. The legal system works better when appeals court judges across the country make decisions, and the supreme court manages the splits. Not sure if it's true, but it sounds like it would avoid the concentration of decisions in one bad court. We see that in "West Texas" patent lawsuits as well. One rogue court can affect the nation.

dctoedt 12y ago
> I like the conclusion of the article, which is that concentrating all patent cases into a single court has given that one court too much power. That particular court seems heavily pro-business right now. The legal system works better when appeals court judges across the country make decisions, and the supreme court manages the splits. The author of the original article probably doesn't remember the days before the Federal Circuit was created. Except for the then-rare cases when the Supreme Court intervened, judicial interpretations and applications of patent law could vary widely among the different courts. The validity of a patent often depended heavily on where the lawsuit was filed. Some courts were known as graveyards for otherwise-good patents. The federal district court in Minnesota was one such place, along with its appellate court the Eighth Circuit. That often led to patent owners and accused infringers racing to get their lawsuits filed first: A patent owner would try to sue the accused infringer first in a patent-friendly court, while the accused infringer would try to sue the patent owner first in, say Minnesota, asking for a "declaratory judgment" of invalidity and non-infringement. Under the procedural rules, usually whoever won the race to the courthouse got to keep their lawsuit alive, while the second-place filer would have their lawsuit dismissed. That in turn led to great uncertainty in the scope, validity, and value of a patent. Clients hate uncertainty. That's what led to the creation of the Federal Circuit: To try to bring more uniformity to the judicial interpretations and applications of patent law.
- WildUtah 12y ago
  Well, that's one interpretation of the history of patent law. Another might note that patentees became enormously more powerful when the CAFC was created, winning a much higher proportion of cases. The metastatic growth of the patent system was a goal of the patent bar. "To try to bring more uniformity to the judicial interpretations and applications of patent law" That isn't an improvement when the decisions are consistently bad.
  - dctoedt 12y ago
    > The metastatic growth of the patent system was a goal of the patent bar. Back then, I was a baby lawyer in one of the largest patent-law firms in the U.S. I don't remember metastatic growth being discussed as an explicit goal, but there's no question that patent attorneys, on both the plaintiff- and defense sides, welcomed the greater prestige and income that went with litigating bet-the-product-line infringement lawsuits.
keithly 12y ago
I think you mean "East Texas": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...
- unreal37 12y ago
  Thanks, I probably do. :)

dctoedt 12y ago

> I like the conclusion of the article, which is that concentrating all patent cases into a single court has given that one court too much power. That particular court seems heavily pro-business right now. The legal system works better when appeals court judges across the country make decisions, and the supreme court manages the splits. The author of the original article probably doesn't remember the days before the Federal Circuit was created. Except for the then-rare cases when the Supreme Court intervened, judicial interpretations and applications of patent law could vary widely among the different courts. The validity of a patent often depended heavily on where the lawsuit was filed. Some courts were known as graveyards for otherwise-good patents. The federal district court in Minnesota was one such place, along with its appellate court the Eighth Circuit. That often led to patent owners and accused infringers racing to get their lawsuits filed first: A patent owner would try to sue the accused infringer first in a patent-friendly court, while the accused infringer would try to sue the patent owner first in, say Minnesota, asking for a "declaratory judgment" of invalidity and non-infringement. Under the procedural rules, usually whoever won the race to the courthouse got to keep their lawsuit alive, while the second-place filer would have their lawsuit dismissed. That in turn led to great uncertainty in the scope, validity, and value of a patent. Clients hate uncertainty. That's what led to the creation of the Federal Circuit: To try to bring more uniformity to the judicial interpretations and applications of patent law.

WildUtah 12y ago
Well, that's one interpretation of the history of patent law. Another might note that patentees became enormously more powerful when the CAFC was created, winning a much higher proportion of cases. The metastatic growth of the patent system was a goal of the patent bar. "To try to bring more uniformity to the judicial interpretations and applications of patent law" That isn't an improvement when the decisions are consistently bad.
- dctoedt 12y ago
  > The metastatic growth of the patent system was a goal of the patent bar. Back then, I was a baby lawyer in one of the largest patent-law firms in the U.S. I don't remember metastatic growth being discussed as an explicit goal, but there's no question that patent attorneys, on both the plaintiff- and defense sides, welcomed the greater prestige and income that went with litigating bet-the-product-line infringement lawsuits.

keithly 12y ago

I think you mean "East Texas": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...

unreal37 12y ago
Thanks, I probably do. :)