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Welcome to Federal Circuitry

Federal Circuitry is a data-driven Federal Circuit blog. Our Federal Circuit Statistics empirically analyze quantifiable aspects of the Court. Our En Banc Tracker highlights pending and past petitions. Our Substantive Order Tracker allows you to search less-discussed orders. Check back weekly for Last Week in the Federal Circuit and monthly for our Oral Argument Recap. Follow us on Twitter @Fed_Circuitry.

March 10, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
The Lifespan of a Rehearing Petition
By: Brian R. Matsui
You’ve lost your case before a Federal Circuit panel and you file a rehearing petition. When can you expect good news (or at least some news…)? Timing of rehearing decisions For a rehearing petitioner, the threshold positive sign to look for is a call
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March 08, 2021 - Last Week in the Federal Circuit
Last Week in the Federal Circuit (March 1-5): Purely Functional Claiming And Means-Plus-Function Elements
By: Seth W. Lloyd
Last week was argument week, and the Federal Circuit previewed its new YouTube channel for streaming live arguments (sadly, audio only for now). Still, that didn’t slow the Federal Circuit down in issuing opinions, including six precedential ones. Below we provide our usual weekly
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March 04, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
How Often Do Federal Circuit Judges Sit?
By: Seth W. Lloyd
Since we’re all about data at Federal Circuitry, we took a quick look at what our data show about how often Federal Circuit judges sit each year. To quantify that, we looked at how many different panel days each judge heard argument for 2018,
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March 02, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
U.S. Navy Breached Implied-in-Fact Software License, Federal Circuit Decides in Bitmanagement
By: Locke Bell
Below is an excerpt from one of Morrison & Foerster’s blogs, Government Contracts , where our lawyers offer a real-time assessment of the statutory, regulatory, legal, and business-related developments and trends that are shaping the industry. The blog’s regularly-published Insights provide an in-depth analysis of developments
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March 01, 2021 - Last Week in the Federal Circuit
Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 22-26): Who Needs Cross Examination? Issue Preclusion Before the PTAB
By: Brian R. Matsui
All eyes are on Arthrex this week, right? So of course we decided to take a look at a Court decision reviewing the Board, and one that—so says the dissent—creates a circuit split. Below we provide our usual weekly statistics and our case of
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February 23, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
Know Your En Banc Petition Process—How An En Banc Petition In GlaxoSmithKline v. Teva Led To A New Panel Argument Without Apparent En Banc Action
By: Seth W. Lloyd
Although argument week isn’t until next week, the Federal Circuit heard oral argument today in two cases. One was rescheduled from earlier this month for medical reasons. But the other, GlaxoSmithKline LLC v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. , No. 18-1976, caught our eye because of
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February 22, 2021 - Last Week in the Federal Circuit
Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 15-19): Equitable Intervening Rights
The Federal Circuit had a slow week, issuing only 8 decisions (just 3 of them precedential). But among those was an interesting case with a question of first impression about the doctrine of equitable intervening rights. Below we provide our usual weekly statistics and
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February 16, 2021 - Last Week in the Federal Circuit
Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 8-12): Patent Term Adjustments When Examiners Back Down
Did you remember to send your favorite examiner a Valentine’s Day card? Okay, so maybe that’s not the typical applicant/examiner relationship. But this week we do look at some potential consequences from the back and forth between examiners and applicants. Below we provide our
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February 16, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
Is Your Appeal More Likely to Be Affirmed Since the Court Went Remote? a Post Valentine’s Day Definitely, Maybe…
By: Brian R. Matsui
Last week I took a look at affirmance rates—both in general and excluding Rule 36s (see It’s Two Weeks After Your Argument, And You’ve Heard Nothing. What Does That Mean ). This week I decided to see what things have been like for cases
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February 10, 2021 - Federal Circuit Insights
It’s Two Weeks After Your Argument, And You’ve Heard Nothing. What Does That Mean?
By: Brian R. Matsui
Since we started this blog, we have taken a look at win-loss percentages a number of times. Now that we recently updated our statistics (sortable, here ), we took another look. This time we thought we’d add a twist to our calculations by answering
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Welcome to Federal Circuitry

The Lifespan of a Rehearing Petition

By: Brian R. Matsui

Last Week in the Federal Circuit (March 1-5): Purely Functional Claiming And Means-Plus-Function Elements

By: Seth W. Lloyd

How Often Do Federal Circuit Judges Sit?

By: Seth W. Lloyd

U.S. Navy Breached Implied-in-Fact Software License, Federal Circuit Decides in Bitmanagement

By: Locke Bell

Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 22-26): Who Needs Cross Examination? Issue Preclusion Before the PTAB

By: Brian R. Matsui

Know Your En Banc Petition Process—How An En Banc Petition In GlaxoSmithKline v. Teva Led To A New Panel Argument Without Apparent En Banc Action

By: Seth W. Lloyd

Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 15-19): Equitable Intervening Rights

Last Week in the Federal Circuit (February 8-12): Patent Term Adjustments When Examiners Back Down

Is Your Appeal More Likely to Be Affirmed Since the Court Went Remote? a Post Valentine’s Day Definitely, Maybe…

By: Brian R. Matsui

It’s Two Weeks After Your Argument, And You’ve Heard Nothing. What Does That Mean?

By: Brian R. Matsui