Abstract
- The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues one-word decisions under Local Rule 36 in roughly one-third of the patent appeals it hears.
- Although US law allows for one-word decisions, they should be rare because parties, reviewing courts and the public need transparency in decisions; explaining decisions promotes accuracy and quality in decision-making and helps prevent inconsistent legal outcomes.
- The Federal Circuit issues many more one-word affirmances than other US Courts of Appeals, which disparately affects patent law, and needs to be addressed to avoid increasing unclarity in the law.
Most appellate courts in the USA issue full opinions on appeal in cases that call for them, and for good reason. As US Supreme Court Justice Cardozo once explained, the long appellate tradition of explaining decisions does more than ‘declaring justice between man and man, but of settling the law’.1 However, there are certain situations where an appellate court may permissibly refrain from providing an explanation, and US Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 36 allows for appellate courts to enter judgments without opinions, ‘as the court instructs’.
Each US circuit court has its own practices and sometimes local rules for when judgments may be entered without opinion, but generally the practice is rare. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears almost all appeals involving patent law, is an outlier. Under its own Local Rule 36, it issues one-word affirmances in roughly one-third of its cases. By comparison, the other US circuit courts issue one-word affirmances at a much lower rate, sometimes never at all. Rather, these courts issue short opinions that still provide much greater clarity than one-word affirmances. This article will discuss the importance of explaining decisions, how the Federal Circuit fails in this regard and why the Federal Circuit should change its practice.
Full article available here.