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USA patent courts and appeals

Revision as of 19:42, 13 August 2010 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (External links: * [http://archive.recapthelaw.org/search/advanced/ RECAP - an archive of "PACER" documents] - this is only a small subset of US court documents, but it's the only publicly availab)

This article describes which bodies handle approval, rejection, and disputes of patent validity in the USA.

The stages of litigation


  • When you sue someone for patent infringement, the validity of the patent can be called into question, and this litigation is in a District Court


  • To contest the district court's ruling, you go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)
    • When the CAFC hears a case en banc, this means that all the judges participated, not just a subset; this is usually done for important cases where the CAFC wants to set a precedent
  • To contest the CAFC's ruling, you can apply to the Supreme Court (sometimes abbreviated "SCOTUS")
    • This is called applying for certiorari
  • If the Supreme Court grants certiorari, they will rule on it with the highest authority of the USA

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