Opinion ID: 779906
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 22 Although Pingel's counterclaims requested direct coercive relief under the patent laws, in Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Sys., Inc., 535 U.S. 826, 122 S.Ct. 1889, 1893, 153 L.Ed.2d 13 (2002), the Supreme Court held that § 1295(a)(1) authorizes us to exercise appellate jurisdiction over only those appeals in which the complaint authorized the district court to exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1338. After Vornado, we may no longer rely solely on counterclaims arising under the patent laws to establish our appellate jurisdiction. 23 Nevertheless, we have jurisdiction over this appeal because Golan's well-pleaded complaint sought declarations of patent noninfringement. Consequently, the complaint arose, in part, under 28 U.S.C. § 1338. This is so because, as the Supreme Court directed in Vornado, the well-pleaded complaint rule governs district court patent jurisdiction under § 1338 to the same extent that it governs the existence of general federal question jurisdiction under § 1331. Id. at ___, 122 S.Ct. at 1893 (`[l]inguistic consistency' requires us to apply the same test to determine whether a case arises under § 1338(a) as under § 1331.) (quoting Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 808, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988)); see also Christianson, 486 U.S. at 809, 108 S.Ct. 2166 (holding that jurisdiction exists under § 1338 only in those cases in which a well-pleaded complaint establishes either that federal patent law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff's right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal patent law, in that patent law is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded claims). 24 In the context of declaratory judgments under § 1331, the plaintiff's complaint arises under federal law if the cause of action that the declaratory defendant threatens to assert arises (or would arise) under federal law. Franchise Tax Bd. of State of Cal. v. Constr. Laborers Vacation Trust for S. Cal., 463 U.S. 1, 18, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2850-51, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983) (noting that under the doctrine of Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U.S. 667, 70 S.Ct. 876, 94 L.Ed. 1194 (1950), which interpreted the federal declaratory judgment act so as not to confer jurisdiction over cases that otherwise would not arise under federal law, federal courts regularly exercise jurisdiction over suits in which if the declaratory judgment defendant brought a coercive action to enforce its rights, that suit would necessarily present a federal question). In the context of a complaint seeking a declaration of noninfringement, the action threatened by the declaratory defendant, here Pingel, would be an action for patent infringement. Such an action clearly arises under the patent laws. See, e.g., Pixton v. B & B Plastics, Inc., 291 F.3d 1324, 1327, 62 USPQ2d 1944, 1946 (Fed.Cir. 2002) (vacating dismissal and holding that district court had jurisdiction because patent infringement suit arises under the patent laws); see also Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U.S. at 18 n. 19, 103 S.Ct. 2841 (recognizing that federal courts have consistently adjudicated suits by alleged patent infringers to declare a patent invalid, on the theory that an infringement suit by the declaratory judgment defendant would raise a federal question over which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction) (citing E. Edelmann & Co. v. Triple-A Specialty Co., 88 F.2d 852 (7th Cir.1937)). Thus, after Vornado, that Pingel actually counterclaimed for patent infringement is irrelevant to our jurisdiction. Instead, it is Golan's well-pleaded complaint, which sought, among other things, declarations of patent noninfringement, that controls, regardless of whether or not Pingel counterclaimed for patent infringement in response to Golan's complaint. Consequently, this court has jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).