Re:Supreme Court rules on software patent case Alice Corp v....
by sthu11182 on Thursday June 19, 2014 @05:19PM
(#7918373)
The regional circuits created a mess with patent law. Wasn't it the 7th circuit that never found a patent to be valid. 3M was justifiably upset about that. If forum shopping is bad now, think how it would be with regional circuit patent law.
Re:Supreme Court rules on software patent case Alice Corp v....
by dctoedt on Thursday June 19, 2014 @07:41PM
(#7918888)
> Wasn't it the 7th circuit that never found a patent to be valid. 3M was justifiably upset about that. 3M was justifiably upset about that. If forum shopping is bad now, think how it would be with regional circuit patent law.
I started out at the very beginning of the Federal Circuit era. I think you might be thinking of the 8th Circuit (and the District of Minnesota) as implacably hostile to patents. And yes, forum-shopping could be really bad in those days.
Re:Supreme Court rules on software patent case Alice Corp v....
by rayiner on Thursday June 19, 2014 @06:03PM
(#7918537)
The 7th Circuit is also not very generous to debtors in bankruptcy practice. Yet the world goes on. This variation isn't a bad thing, IMHO.
Before the CAFC, patent appeals went to the regional circuits. Now they all -- every one in the nation -- run to the corrupt CAFC. Even non-patent cases like the case where CAFC ruled in favor of copyrights on APIs can be packaged off the the CAFC instead of regional circuits by including unrelated patent issues.