Law Commons^™

The Federal Circuit As An Institution, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a unique institution. Unlike other circuit courts, the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction is bound by subject area rather than geography, and it was created to address a unique set of problems specific to patent law. These characteristics have affected its institutional development and made the court one of the most frequently studied appellate courts. This chapter examines this development and describes the evolving qualities that have helped the Federal Circuit distinguish itself, for better or worse, as an institution.

This chapter begins with an overview of the concerns existing before creation of …

When Can The Patent Office Intervene In Its Own Cases?, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of administrative patent validity review since the America Invents Act has rested on an enormous expansion of Patent Office authority. A relatively little-known aspect of that authority is the agency's statutory ability to intervene in Federal Circuit appeals from adversarial proceedings in its own Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The Patent Office has exercised this intervenor authority frequently and with specific apparent policy objectives, including where one of the adverse parties did not participate in the appeal. Moreover, until recently, there has been no constitutional inquiry into the Article III standing that the Patent Office must establish in …

The Actavis Inference: Theory And Practice, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court considered "reverse payment" settlements of patent infringement litigation. In such a settlement, a patentee pays the alleged infringer to settle, and the alleged infringer agrees not to enter the market for a period of time. The Court held that a reverse payment settlement violates antitrust law if the patentee is paying to avoid competition. The core insight of Actavis is the Actavis Inference: a large and otherwise unexplained payment, combined with delayed entry, supports a reasonable inference of harm to consumers from lessened competition.

This paper is an effort to assist courts …

Actavis And Error Costs: A Reply To Critics, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s opinion in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. provided fundamental guidance about how courts should handle antitrust challenges to reverse payment patent settlements. In our previous article, Activating Actavis, we identified and operationalized the essential features of the Court’s analysis. Our analysis has been challenged by four economists, who argue that our approach might condemn procompetitive settlements.

As we explain in this reply, such settlements are feasible, however, only under special circumstances. Moreover, even where feasible, the parties would not actually choose such a settlement in equilibrium. These considerations, and others discussed in the reply, serve to …

Do Reverse Payment Settlements Violate The Antitrust Laws, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

The term "reverse payment" has been used as shorthand to characterize a variety of diverse agreements between patent owners and alleged infringers that involve a transfer of consideration from the patent owner to the alleged infringer. Reverse payment settlements are particularly associated with drug patent challenges mounted by generic drug companies under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Many, including the Federal Trade Commission, would characterize these agreements as antitrust violations. However, courts have generally declined to find these agreements in violation of the antitrust laws based solely on the presence of a reverse payment.

This article begins in Section II with an …

Adrift On A Sea Of Uncertainty: Preserving Uniformity In Patent Law Post-Vornado Through Deference To The Federal Circuit, Larry D. Thompson

Scholarly Works

Congress created the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982, and granted that court exclusive appellate jurisdiction over civil actions arising under patent law. Congress's primary goals in creating the Federal Circuit were to produce a more uniform patent jurisprudence and to reduce forum shopping based on favorable patent law. But in the 2002 decision of Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, the Supreme Court held that patent counterclaims alone could not create Federal Circuit jurisdiction. This decision not only overruled the Federal Circuit's longstanding jurisdictional rule, but also opened the door for Regional …