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A belated happy birthday to Judge Newman! I believe she turned 94 on June 20th. Feared by glass ceilings everywhere.

I stumbled upon this compendium of open source casebooks that I thought was pretty cool. The list includes open source casebooks on the subjects of: IP, Copyright, Patent, Trademark, Advertising, Music, Licensing, Internet, Artificial Intelligence, Telecommunications, National Security, IP & Administrative, and IP & Antitrust Law. Here’s the link: https://james.grimmelmann.net/files/casebooks .

Judge Evan Wallach of the Federal Circuit assumed senior status today. I always admire the judges who take senior status when it becomes available. They free up slots on the court for new judges while still making themselves available for significant participation on the court as senior judges. It is a selfless act that expands the ranks of the court.

Ronald Reagan once quipped that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” I thought it was somewhat humorous that Judge Newman, who was appointed by Reagan, heard a similar sentiment from the Solicitor’s Office when the Solicitor’s Office intervened in the Biogen v. Iancu appeal.

And while we understand that “[t]he obviousness analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation,” we also recognize that we cannot allow hindsight bias to be the thread that stitches together prior art patches into something that is the claimed invention.

Metalcraft of Mayville, Inc. v. The Toro Co., 848 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2017).

The oral argument of the day comes from Biogen v. Iancu. This case was decided in December 2020; but, it was argued in December of 2019. It took the Federal Circuit over twelve months to decide the appeal by a Rule 36 judgment. How strange. If a case qualifies for Rule 36, why would the panel take so long to dispatch the appeal? Usually, Rule 36 judgments issue within a few weeks of oral argument, at the longest. This one took over a year from the date of oral argument.

I took a look on PACER and there were no clues as to why the decision took a long time. The panel was comprised of Judge Newman, Judge Moore, and Judge Chen. I have some theories on why it could have taken a long time. One, perhaps the court was pondering taking the case en banc sua sponte. Two, perhaps there was a majority and a dissent and no strong opinion on either side. So, after protracted deliberation, the panel opted for a Rule 36. Three, perhaps Covid got in the way somehow.

There were two issues that might have prompted a sua sponte en banc review. First, Judge Newman has been vocal about the Director interloping into appeals of IPR’s when one of the parties drops out. [Link] Such was the case in this oral argument, where Judge Newman again challenged the presence of the Director at the oral argument.

Second, the PTAB invalidated the claims at issue based on a five reference combination — in the unpredictable art of treating cancer, no less. Judge Moore once again expressed some concern about a rejection that involved so many references.

Perhaps the court was considering this case as a potential vehicle for overruling or putting some gloss on In re Gorman (authored by Judge Pauline Newman). For previous times when Judge Moore and others have expressed concern about combining a smorgasbord of references, see this previous post [Link]. At the end of the day, perhaps this outcome was best. If the court is going to address obviousness rejections based on an excessive number of references, it seems best to tee up that issue after Judge Moore has become Chief Judge. At that point she will have seniority to author the opinion.

At any rate, the oral argument was very well done and merits being the oral argument of the day. You can listen to the entire oral argument here:

You can read the Rule 36 judgment here: [Link].

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Update 5/13/21:

Query: Would the Federal Circuit be better served by appointing an amicus to defend the arguments of the party that drops out of an appeal of an IPR? It is somewhat confusing as to whether the Director is representing the Director’s position, the PTAB’s position, or the dropped-out party’s position when the Director intervenes in an appeal like this. Moreover, the government has previously argued that it can take a position opposite to what the PTAB decided and pick and choose which parts of the PTAB decision to defend at the CAFC. So, I think it can be confusing to the Federal Circuit judges who probably assume that the Director by default is defending all of the positions taken by the PTAB. Should the Federal Circuit adopt an operating procedure that requires the government to identify which portions of the PTAB decision (or arguments below of the dropped-out party) that the government does not endorse at the time of filing its brief? Seems unlikely to me that the government would feel comfortable endorsing all the positions that a dropped-out party took below.

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Update 4/15/23:

The recent scrutiny of Judge Newman’s fitness to continue as an active judge on the Federal Circuit might shed some light on this protracted Rule 36 Judgment. These orders released by the CAFC suggest that Judge Newman took extended periods of time to author opinions and some authorship responsibilities were re-assigned as a result: March 24, 2023 Order and April 13, 2023 Order.

The Supreme Court has requested that the Solicitor General of the United States file a brief expressing its views as to whether the Court should grant cert. in American Axle v. Neapco. I was curious when one should expect that brief to be filed. Back in Google v. Oracle, the Court requested such a brief on April 29th of 2019 and the SG filed its brief on September 29th of 2019. In American Axle, the Court requested the view of the SG on May 3, 2021. So, it looks like one could expect the SG’s brief in American Axle around the end of September.

The oral argument of the day is from MEDICINOVA, INC. v. GENZYME CORPORATION, No. 2020-1064 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 14, 2020). This was a Rule 36 Judgment. I thought the oral argument was interesting for its discussion of “derivative claim construction.” This not so common expression refers to construing a term not present in the claim itself, but rather, present in the construction of the claim term. One example of this is from the Advanced Fiber Technologies Trust v. J & L FIBER, 674 F.3d 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2012) case:

The disputed term at issue, “perforated,” appears not in the claims but rather in the district court’s construction of a disputed claim term. We note, as an initial matter, that “we do not ordinarily construe words that are not in claims.” Edwards Lifesciences LLC v. Cook Inc., 582 F.3d 1322, 1334 (Fed.Cir.2009); see also Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 365 U.S. 336, 339, 81 S.Ct. 599, 5 L.Ed.2d 592 (1961) (“[T]he claims made in the patent are the sole measure of the grant.”). However, in those cases in which the correct construction of a claim term necessitates a derivative construction of a non-claim term, a court may perform the derivative construction in order to elucidate the claim’s meaning.

Advanced Fiber Technologies Trust v. J & L FIBER, 674 F.3d 1365, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2012).

You can listen to the oral argument here:

You can read the Rule 36 Judgment here: [Link].

Lately, my pleasure reading has gone in the direction of books about neuroplasticity. It has prompted me to wonder how brain imaging might be used in the practice of patent law. For example, could evidence in the form of fMRI scans on a sampling of PHOSITA’s be introduced as secondary indicia of non-obviousness? Is there an area(s) of the brain that could be identified as becoming active when hindsight is invoked? Could fMRI scans be used on patent examiners/judges to better assess patent eligibility? There are a myriad of other issues that one might use neuroscience and brain analysis to weed out the biases that are so prevalent in patent law. Pretty far-fetched, I know; but, fun to think about.

This 2019 article discusses the role that neuroscience scholarship has recently played in the criminal courts: [link].

Some good books if you want to explore neuroscience further are:

The Brain’s Way of Healing by Norman Doidge.

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.

The Brain by David Eagleman.

Train Your Mind Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley.

Incognito — The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman.

Soft-Wired by Michael Merzenich.

Some interesting brain health programs are:

BrainHQ at www.brainhq.com

Neuroflux and its free five day brain bootcamp: https://www.neuroflux.io

Update 12/23/2021:

I was watching the Strafford CLE Design Patent Litigation: Increasing the Probability of Success in Infringement Outcomes and was intrigued to learn of a new survey technique being used in design patent litigation. As you know, the test for design patent infringement can be very subjective. The new technique described in this CLE and dubbed the Empirical Ordinary Observer Test (EOOT) attempts to remove some of that subjectivity using neuroscience methods. For example, at least eye tracking is used, although there was reference to micro-facial expressions, EEG, EMG, and Cognitive Modeling and Workload Analysis. It’s an excellent CLE, if you are interested.

Some of the other references mentioned in the CLE are:

Individual Differences in the Centrality of Visual Product Aesthetics by Bloch et al. (2003) [Link];

Development and initial validation of an empirical ordinary observer test for design patent infringement by Mauro et al. (2020) [Link];

Why the Future of Design Patent Protections Will Rely on Modern Neuroscience, Not Constitutional and Legal Reversionism, Berkeley Technology Law Journal (November 2021);

Research Handbook on Design Law, Chapter 16: How Different is Different? Modern Neuroscience and its Impact on Design Law by Mauro et al., Edward Elgar Publishing (2021) [Link]; and

Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Federal Judicial Center (2011) [Link].

I was trying to figure out if the phrasing of the questions during the recent Supreme Court oral argument of Minerva v. Hologic signaled any outcome in the US v. Arthrex case. For example, would the justices refer to the role of the PTAB judges in eliminating bad patents? Would there be references to IPR’s or post-grant review? The transcript shows that there were not that many references to the PTAB. And, when there were, it was by the advocates — not by the justices. Justice Gorsuch, however, did reference IPR’s. For example, he stated: “And now we have the Patent Office itself refusing to apply patent estoppel in its own proceedings, for — in IPR proceedings. So the only place left that this doctrine seems to apply is in court.” Later he stated: “Unless they get challenged in the Patent Office in the IPR, which they could be. And then —.” At the end of the day, I don’t think the oral argument in Minerva suggests how the Court is deciding Arthrex one way or the other.

I did think one of Chief Justice Robert’s questions was intriguing:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Hochman. I want to focus a little bit on your — your policy argument that getting rid of assignor estoppel would help, you know, get rid — rid of bad patents in encouraging inventors to — to challenge particular claims. But I thought strong patents was the way we encourage invention and that assignor estoppel helped ensure the strength and stability of — of those patents. How do you sort out those competing policy arguments?

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc. on Wednesday April 21st at 9AM Mountain time. The case addresses assignor estoppel — an issue the Supreme Court clearly deems more important at this time than patent eligibility. You can review the briefs on the SCOTUSBLOG at this [LINK].

You should be able to audio stream below once the C-SPAN presentation goes live:

The Federal Circuit is going live with broadcasts to the public of its telephonic oral arguments solely via YouTube tomorrow. Conspiracy theorists will probably be disgruntled since YouTube is owned by Google. That does raise an interesting question, though — did the Federal Circuit have to go through a government approval process or security process before selecting YouTube over the court’s previous livestream system?

Unfortunately, it looks like the YouTube comments section will be turned off during the live stream of each oral argument. That would be fun to have the opportunity to suggest questions that the judges could ask during the oral arguments or to cast your own “vote” on an issue at the conclusion of the oral argument. Maybe some enterprising blogger will set up a parallel commenting system to perform just such a service.

As you probably are aware already, Chicago attorney Tiffany Cunningham has been nominated to fill Judge Wallach’s seat on the Federal Circuit when he takes senior status. I don’t think it is much of a stretch to say that nominee Cunningham will be confirmed by the Senate. One of the interesting questions that Chief Judge Prost or soon-to-be Chief Judge Moore will have to tackle is when should the swearing-in ceremony take place. My impression is that 28 U.S.C. §44(c) still applies:

“While in active service, each circuit judge of the Federal judicial circuit appointed after the effective date of the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, and the chief judge of the Federal judicial circuit, whenever appointed, shall reside within fifty miles of the District of Columbia.”

28 U.S.C. §44(C).

Presumably the swearing-in ceremony — or at least the beginning of active service, if swearing-in does not initiate active service — would need to take place after nominee Cunningham has established residency in D.C., Virginia, Delaware, or Maryland. My understanding is that it takes six months to establish permanent residency in D.C. and Maryland, and twelve months to do so in Virginia. Delaware requires six months in the state, but might not be effective until twelve months have passed. So, assuming the nomination process moves along expeditiously, it won’t be until at least October that the future-Judge Cunningham can take the bench. We’ll see if the Federal Circuit takes a different approach to the word “reside” in the statute, though. (I think most people would agree that 28 U.S.C. §44(c) is a dumb law, anyway.)

If you are interested in some of the nuances of the nomination process, see this post from back in 2015: The Circuit Court Appointment Process, Post Senate Confirmation.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in U.S. v. Arthrex. You can listen to the audio here: [Link]. The audio cuts out for a few minutes at the one hour mark and then resumes a few minutes later.

I noticed this evening that the Supreme Court appointed an amicus to argue on behalf of the S.E.C. ALJ’s in the Lucia v. SEC case a few years ago. The main reason was that the government changed position during the appeal — so there was nobody left to present the position of the ALJ’s.

It strikes me as odd that people who have a lot to lose in the Arthrex case — the PTAB judges — have nobody arguing directly on their behalf. They are facing loss of certain employment protections, yet no amicus has been appointed for them by the Court — nor was an amicus appointed for them at the Federal Circuit.