Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-16T09:27:38.000Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

To Stay or Not to Stay: Patent Litigation in the Federal District Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Banks Miller  and
Brett Curry
Banks Miller
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Brett Curry*
Affiliation:
Georgia Southern University, USA
*
Contact the corresponding author, Brett Curry, at bcurry@georgiasouthern.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigate when district judges stay litigation pending the resolution of parallel administrative proceedings. Leveraging unique aspects of patent litigation to create a robust test of the proposition, we consider how ideology conditions judicial behavior on this procedural judgment. We find that legal considerations guide stay decisions and that there is also an ideological dimension to that choice. Conservative district judges approach motions to stay consistent with conservative concerns regarding frivolous litigation even as they are influenced by case characteristics. This suggests a role for judicial discretion and implies that ideology’s influence in the district courts may be greater than frequently thought.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 167 - 188
Copyright
© 2022 Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Data and supporting materials necessary to reproduce the numerical results in the article are available in the JLC Dataverse at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/LCULHG.

References

Allison, John R., and Mark A. Lemley. 1998. “Empirical Evidence on the Validity of Litigated Patents.” American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal 26:185–275.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 1980. “Responses of Federal District Judges to Court of Appeals Policies: An Exploration.” Western Political Quarterly 33:217–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 1997. The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2016. Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections. Public version 2.0 [computer file]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries. https://data.stanford.edu/dime.Google Scholar
Boyd, Christina L. 2015. “The Hierarchical Influence of Courts of Appeals on District Courts.” Journal of Legal Studies 44:113–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L. 2016. “Representation on the Courts? The Effects of Trial Judges’ Sex and Race.” Political Research Quarterly 69:788–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L. 2017. “Gatekeeping and Filtering in Trial Courts.” In The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Judicial Behavior, ed. Lee Epstein and Stefanie A. Lindquist, 129–48. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., and Ethan D. Boldt. 2017. “U.S. District Courts.” In Routledge Handbook of Judicial Behavior, ed. Robert M. Howard and Kirk A. Randazzo, 259–79. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., and David A. Hoffman. 2013. “Litigating toward Settlement.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 29:898–929.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., Pauline T. Kim, and Margo Schlanger. 2020. “Mapping the Iceberg: The Impact of Data Sources on the Study of District Courts.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 17:466–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., and Jacqueline Sievert. 2013. “Unaccountable Justice? The Decision Making of Magistrate Judges in the Federal District Courts.” Justice System Journal 34:249–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina L., and James F. Spriggs II. 2009. “An Examination of Strategic Anticipation of Appellate Court Preferences by Federal District Court Judges.” Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 29:37–80.Google Scholar
Collins, Paul. 2008. “The Consistency of Judicial Choice.” Journal of Politics 70:861–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenberg, Theodore, and Charlotte Lanvers. 2009. “What Is the Settlement Rate and Why Should We Care?” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 6:111–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee, William M. Landes, and Richard A. Posner. 2013. The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fradella, Henry F. 1999. “In Search of Meritorious Claims: A Study of the Processing of Prisoner Civil Rights Cases in Federal District Court.” Justice System Journal 21:23–55.Google Scholar
Frontz, Matthew R. 2015. “Staying Litigation Pending Inter Partes Review and Effects on Patent Litigation.” Federal Circuit Bar Journal 24:469–520.Google Scholar
Giles, Micheal W., Virginia A. Hettinger, and Todd C. Peppers. 2001. “Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas.” Political Research Quarterly 54:623–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gugliuzza, Paul R. 2018. “Quick Decisions in Patent Cases.” Georgetown Law Journal 106:619–81.Google Scholar
Guthrie, Chris. 2000. “Framing Frivolous Litigation: A Psychological Theory.” University of Chicago Law Review 2000:163–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haltom, William, and Michael McCann. 2004. Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, David A., Alan Izenman, and Jeffrey Lidicker. 2007. “Docketology, District Courts, and Doctrine.” Washington University Law Review 85:681–751.Google Scholar
Hosie, Spencer. 2008. “Patent Trolls and the New Tort Reform: A Practitioner’s Perspective.” I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society 4:75–87.Google Scholar
Hurst, Nathan. 2013. “How the America Invents Act Will Change Patenting Forever.” Wired, March 15. http://www.wired.com/2013/03/america-invents-act/.Google Scholar
Kim, Pauline T., Margo Schlanger, Christina L. Boyd, and Andrew D. Martin. 2009. “How Should We Study District Court Judge Decision-Making?” Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 29:83–112.Google Scholar
Klausner, Michael, Jason Hegland, Carin LeVine, and Jessica Shin. 2020. “State Section 11 Litigation in the Post-Cyan Environment (despite Sciabacuchi).” Business Lawyer 75:1769–90.Google Scholar
Landes, William M., and Richard A. Posner. 2003. The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Levitt, Kenneth E. 2011. “Patent Reform Becomes Law: The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.” https://www.dorsey.com/newsresources/publications/2011/09/patent-reform-becomes-law-the-leahysmith-america__.Google Scholar
Liptak, Adam. 2015. “Supreme Court Ruling Altered Civil Suits, to Detriment of Individuals.” New York Times, May 18. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/9-11-ruling-by-supreme-court-has-transformed-civil-lawsuits.html.Google Scholar
Lynch, Kevin J. 2012. “When Staying Discovery Stays Justice: Analyzing Motions to Stay Discovery When a Motion to Dismiss Is Pending.” Wake Forest Law Review 47:71–112.Google Scholar
Mandel, Gregory N. 2014. “The Public Perception of Intellectual Property.” Florida Law Review 66:261–312.Google Scholar
Mandel, Gregory N., Anne A. Fast, and Kristina R. Olson. 2015. “Intellectual Property Law’s Plagiarism Fallacy.” BYU Law Review 2015:915–84.Google Scholar
Margolies, Howard. 1987. Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McArthur, John B., and Thomas W. Paterson. 1990. “Effects of Monsanto, Matsushita, and Sharp on the Plaintiff’s Incentive to Sue.” Connecticut Law Review 23:333–54.Google Scholar
McKenzie, Mark Jonathan. 2012. “The Influence of Partisanship, Ideology, and the Law on Redistricting Decisions in the Federal Courts.” Political Research Quarterly 65:799–813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Banks, and Brett Curry. 2009. “Expertise, Experience, and Ideology on a Specialized Court: The Case of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.” Law and Society Review 43:839–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Patricia W. Hatamyar. 2015. “The Civil Caseload of the Federal District Courts.” University of Illinois Law Review 2015:1177–238.Google Scholar
Motl, Ann E. 2015. “Inter Partes Review: Ensuring Effective Patent Litigation through Estoppel.” Minnesota Law Review 99:1975–2003.Google Scholar
Perino, Michael A. 2006. “Law, Ideology, and Strategy in Judicial Decision Making: Evidence from Securities Fraud Actions.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 3:497–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rader, Randall, Colleen V. Chien, and David Hricik. 2013. “Make Patent Trolls Pay in Court.” New York Times, June 4. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/opinion/make-patent-trolls-pay-in-court.html.Google Scholar
Raffiee, Joseph, and Florenta Teodoridis. 2020. “Does the Political Ideology of Patent Examiners Matter? An Empirical Investigation.” Working paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3619474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinert, Alexander A. 2014. “Screening Out Innovation: The Merits of Meritless Litigation.” Indiana Law Journal 89:1191–237.Google Scholar
Rhode, Deborah L. 2004. “Frivolous Litigation and Civil Justice Reform: Miscasting the Problem, Recasting the Solution.” Duke Law Journal 54:447–83.Google Scholar
Rowland, C. K., and Robert A. Carp. 1996. Politics and Judgment in Federal District Courts. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Sag, Matthew, Tonja Jacobi, and Maxim Stych. 2009. “Ideology and Exceptionalism in Intellectual Property: An Empirical Study.” California Law Review 97:801–56.Google Scholar
Schwartz, David L., and Jay P. Kesan. 2014. “Analyzing the Role of Non-practicing Entities in the Patent System.” Cornell Law Review 99:425–56.Google Scholar
Simpson, Amy, Bing Ai, Jonathan N. James, and Paul M. Parker. 2015. “Inter Partes Review Proceedings: A Third Anniversary Report.” https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/inter-partes-review-proceedings-a-third-anniversary-report.html.Google Scholar
Sisk, Gregory C., and Michael Heise. 2011. “Ideology ‘All the Way Down’? An Empirical Study of Establishment Clause Decisions in the Federal Courts.” Michigan Law Review 110:1201–64.Google Scholar
Stach, Jason E., and Benjamin A. Saidman. 2016. “Maximizing the Likelihood of a Litigation Stay Pending Inter Partes Review.” IP Litigator, September–October. https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/maximizing-the-likelihood-of-a-litigation-stay-pending-inter.html.Google Scholar
Stach, Jason E., and Andrew G. Strickland. 2014. “Exploring the Expanding Scope of Covered Business Method Reviews.” Intellectual Property and Technology Law Journal 26:20–24.Google Scholar
Sudarshan, Ranganath. 2008. “Nuisance-Value Patent Suits: An Economic Model and Proposal.” Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal 25:159–89.Google Scholar
Sugarman, Stephen D. 2006. “Ideological Flip-Flop: American Liberals Are Now the Primary Supporters of Tort Law.” In Essays on Tort, Insurance, Law, and Society in Honour of Bill W. Dufwa, ed. Hugo Tiberg and Martin Clarke, 1105–22. Stockholm: Jure Förlag AB.Google Scholar
Thomas, John R. 2014. “The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act: Innovation Issues.” Congressional Research Service Report no. R42014.Google Scholar
Tu, Shine. 2015. “Invalidated Patents and Associated Patent Examiners.” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 18:135–65.Google Scholar
Vishnubhakat, Saurabh, Arti K. Rai, and Jay P. Kesan. 2016. “Strategic Decision Making in Dual PTAB and District Court Proceedings.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 31:45–122.Google Scholar
Williams, Eliot D., and May Eaton. 2015. “Surviving PTAB Trials as a Patent Owner: Protecting Your Portfolio from the PTAB ‘Death Squads.’” Intellectual Property and Technology Law Journal 27:9–10.Google Scholar
Wittlin, Maggie, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, and Gregory N. Mandel. 2018. “What Causes Polarization on IP Policy?” University of California, Davis Law Review 52:1193–241.Google Scholar
Wyatt, Edward. 2011. “Banks Turn to Schumer on Patents.” New York Times, June 14. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/business/15schumer.html.Google Scholar
Zorn, Christopher J. W., and Jennifer Barnes Bowie. 2010. “Ideological Influences on Decision Making in the Federal Judicial Hierarchy: An Empirical Assessment.” Journal of Politics 72:1212–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Miller and Curry supplementary material
Download undefined(File)
File 354.4 KB