Supreme Court strips more power from controversial patent court by Jeff John Roberts.
From the post:
The Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday that will have a significant impact on the patent system by limiting the ability of the Federal Circuit, a specialized court that hears patent appeals, to review key findings by lower court judges.
The 7-2 patent decision, which came the same day as a high profile ruling by the Supreme Court on prisoner beards, concerns an esoteric dispute between two pharmaceutical companies, Teva and Sandoz, over the right way to describe the molecule weight of a multiple sclerosis drug.
The Justices of the Supreme Court, however, appears to have taken the case in part because it presented another opportunity to check the power of the Federal Circuit, which has been subject to a recent series of 9-0 reversals and which some regard as a “rogue court” responsible for distorting the U.S. patent system.
As for the legal decision on Tuesday, it turned on the question of whether the Federal Circuit judges can review patent claim findings as they please (“de novo”) or only in cases where they has been serious error. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer concluded that the Federal Circuit could not second guess how lower courts interpret those claims (a process called “claim construction”) except on rare occasions.
There is no doubt the Federal Circuit has done its share of damage to the patent system but it hasn’t acted alone. Congress and the patent system itself bear a proportionate share of the blame.
Better search and retrieval technology can’t clean out the mire in the USPTO stables. That is going to require reform from Congress and a sustained effort at maintaining the system once it has been reformed.
In the meantime, knowing that another blow has been dealt the Federal Circuit on patent issues will have to sustain reform efforts.