Tonight, I suggest reading Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) article Bringing Transparency to Patent Law.
I worked with Michael Barclay while at WSGR 1993-1998, and he is a great guy. Here's part of the article:
"Previously, the Federal Circuit issued many of its orders for free on its website. They were not necessarily easy to search, but it was at least possible to search by party name or download all orders they issued. But at the end of 2014, the Federal Circuit announced a new policy. Instead of publishing most orders, the Federal Circuit would only publish “selected” orders. (To be clear, PACER is still available, but it is notoriously difficult to navigate and charges both to search and download information. We’re not fans of PACER.)
Unfortunately, “selected” orders seems to mean “few if any” orders. Since the new policy went into effect, only 6 orders have been made freely available (compare that to the quarter from July 1, 2014 to September 30, 2014, where the Federal Circuit published over 180 orders).
We’re concerned that the new Federal Circuit practice is limiting the availability of the public to understand how our courts work. The Federal Circuit hears all appeals in patent cases so its recent practice is especially disappointing since it comes at a time when interest in patent law, and possible reform, is very high."
Copyright © 2015 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
