Court Opinion

ID: 9491197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:06:37.299406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:34.520006
License: Public Domain

CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the decision not to rehear this case in banc. As a member of the merits panel, I continue to subscribe to the opinion and decision of the . court that the state law causes of action pleaded in this ease are not preempted by federal patent law. As the panel opinion amply demonstrates, see Dow Chem. Co. v. Exxon Corp., 139 F.3d 1470, 1477-78 (Fed.Cir. 1998), the state law causes of action are based essentially on conduct in the state’s commercial marketplace that allegedly has harmed the plaintiff. It so happens that the alleged misconduct centers on an allegedly defective patent.
Judge Lourie’s fears are unwarranted. A state law cause of action that pleads an issue that embraces a substantial question of federal patent law remains a state law cause, in terms of its derivation, but-it is—for purposes of the jurisdiction of a U.S. District Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a) and our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1)—a cause “arising under” the federal patent law. The Supreme Court said so in no uncertain terms:
§ 1338(a) jurisdiction ... extend[s] only to those eases in which a well-pleaded com*1480plaint establishes either that federal patent law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiffs 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.
Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 807-09, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988) (emphasis added). We, of course, followed that clear rule in Additive Controls & Measurement Systems, Inc. v. Flowdata, Inc., 986 F.2d 476, 477-78, 25 USPQ2d 1798, 1799-1801 (Fed.Cir.1993). Therefore, a cause of action having a substantial question of federal patent law will lie in the United States District Courts in the first instance, or by removal from a state court, and review of the district court decision will he in this court. The values of national uniformity for which this court was created will thus be promoted when we decide whether the federal patent law issue in the state law cause of action has properly been decided. Indeed, our job is to assure such uniformity without trampling on the authority of states to protect the rights of their residents.
Thus, Judge Lourie’s predictions of plaguelike harm to the tissue of federal patent law, and even to the states, are simply wrong. The sky will not fall on our patent system by our refusal to preempt the state law causes of action at issue here, which plead at their core a substantial question of federal patent law. Instead, we will have preserved the right of states, in our federal republic, to protect valid interests within their borders, in a system of judicial harmony that lodges adjudication of these cases in the federal district courts, with uniform review assured by the appellate jurisdiction of this court. There simply is no need to preempt the causes of action here in order to protect consistent federal judicial interpretation of the patent law. Judge Lourie’s opinion concedes as much, as it must, in the light of the jurisdictional precedent.
The panel decision is therefore correct, and the court is correct in declining to rehear the ease in banc.
ON SUGGESTION FOR REHEARING IN BANC