Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The United States judicial system is based upon a system of teaching and learning. Higher courts teach doctrine to lower courts via judicial decisions, and lower courts learn from these decisions. This article tests the teaching-and-learning premise on the issue of claim construction in the realities of patent litigation. I examines the appellate performance of district court judges with varying experience on the issue of patent claim construction. While others have shown that the Federal Circuit reverses a large percentage of lower court claim constructions (generally between 33% to 50%), until this study, no one has analyzed whether judges with more claim construction appeal experience fare better on subsequent appeals.

Quite surprisingly, my data do not reveal any evidence that district court judges learn from prior appeals of their rulings. I also found no suggestion that there is a significant relationship between experience and performance. The lack of evidence that Federal Circuit review aids district court judges is disconcerting. Either the district court judges are incapable of or not interested in learning, or the Federal Circuit decisions do a poor job of teaching district court judges how to construe claims. If the Federal Circuit is failing in its teaching capacity, this has serious ramifications for the patent system. Further, if this breakdown in the learning and teaching dynamic is not limited to patent law, a broader revisiting of our understanding of the court system may be warranted.