Court Opinion

ID: 9431359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:07.499531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.167520
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Blackmun joins, concurring.
In a seminal case construing federal-question jurisdiction, Justice Cardozo wrote that “[w]hat is needed is something of *820that common-sense accommodation of judgment to kaleidoscopic situations which characterizes the law in its treatment of problems of causation ... a selective process which picks the substantial causes out of the web and lays the other ones aside.” Gully v. First National Bank in Meridian, 299 U. S. 109, 117-118 (1936). Although I agree with the Court’s conclusion in this case that appellate jurisdiction is in the Seventh Circuit rather than the Federal Circuit, I write separately to emphasize that a common-sense application of Justice Cardozo’s dictum requires that the answer to the question whether a claim arises under the patent laws may depend on the time when the question is asked. More specifically, if the question is asked at the end of a trial in order to decide whether the Federal Circuit has appellate jurisdiction, the answer may be different than if it had been asked at the outset to decide whether a federal district court has jurisdiction to try the case.
When Congress passed the Federal Courts Improvement Act in 1982 and vested exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to resolve appeals of claims that had arisen under the patent laws in the federal district courts, it was responding to concerns about both the lack of uniformity in federal appellate construction of the patent laws and the forum-shopping that such divergent appellate views had generated. Nonetheless, its definition of the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction did not embrace all cases in which a district court had decided a patent-law question. Instead, it adopted a standard that requires the appellate court to decide whether the jurisdiction of the district court was based, in whole or in part, on a claim “arising under” the patent laws.1
*821The question whether a claim arises under the patent laws is similar to the question whether a claim arises under federal law. Although there is no single, precise, all-embracing definition of either body of law, the “vast majority” of cases that come within either “grant of jurisdiction are covered by Justice Holmes’ statement that a ‘suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action.’ Thus, the vast majority of cases brought under the general federal-question jurisdiction of the federal courts are those in which federal law creates the cause of action.” Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, 808 (1986) (citation omitted). In this case it is clear that the causes of action asserted by petitioners were created by the antitrust laws and not the patent laws. Congress did not create an express cause of action to enforce § 112 of the patent laws, and I find no merit in respondent’s suggestion that we should recognize an implied cause of action under § 112. Accordingly, I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the issue of wrongful retention of proprietary information that became the focus of this case under § 112 of the patent laws could not confer appellate jurisdiction in the Federal Circuit, because the issue arose as a defense rather than as a claim.2
*822To the extent that Part III-A of the Court’s opinion does nothing more than abjure the notion that the Federal Circuit has jurisdiction over patent-law issues as well as claims, I am thus in complete agreement. However, in rejecting respondent’s contention that “Congress’ goals would be better served if the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction were to be fixed ‘by reference to the case actually litigated,’ rather than by an ex ante hypothetical assessment of the elements of the complaint that might have been dispositive,” ante, at 813, the Court’s opinion might be read as suggesting that whether patent claims are properly before the Federal Circuit on appeal should be determined by examining only the initial complaint and not by ascertaining whether a patent claim in fact was litigated in the case. Such an approach would assume that whether a case “arises under” the patent laws turns on the same considerations whether one is determining the Federal Circuit’s appellate jurisdiction or a federal district court’s original jurisdiction. But although 28 U. S. C. *823§ 1338(a) provides the basis for both types of jurisdictional assessment, I think it clear that Congress could not have intended precisely the same analysis in both instances. Two simple examples will illustrate the point.
If a patentee should file a two-count complaint seeking damages (1) under the antitrust laws and (2) for patent infringement, the district court’s jurisdiction would unquestionably be based, at least in part, on § 1338(a). If, however, pretrial discovery convinced the plaintiff that no infringement had occurred, and Count 2 was therefore dismissed voluntarily in advance of trial, the case that would actually be litigated would certainly not arise under the patent laws for purposes of appellate jurisdiction. Even though the district court’s original jurisdiction when the complaint was filed had been based, in part, on § 1338(a), the case would no longer be one arising under the patent laws for purposes of Federal Circuit review when the district court’s judgment was entered. Conversely, if an original complaint alleging only an antitrust violation should be amended after discovery to add a patent-law claim, and if the plaintiff should be successful in proving that its patent was valid and infringed but unsuccessful in proving any basis for recovery under the antitrust laws, the district court’s judgment would sustain a claim arising under the patent laws even though the complaint initially invoking its jurisdiction had not mentioned it, and an appeal would properly lie in the Federal Circuit.
Whether the complaint is actually amended, as in the previous example, or constructively amended to conform to the proof, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(b),3 Congress’ goal of en*824suring that appeals of patent-law claims go to the Federal Circuit would be thwarted by determining that court’s appellate jurisdiction only through an examination of the complaint as initially filed. That approach would enable an unscrupulous plaintiff to manipulate appellate court jurisdiction by the timing of the amendments to its complaint. The Court expressly leaves open the question whether a constructive amendment could provide the foundation for Federal Circuit patent-law jurisdiction, see ante, at 814-815,4 and says nothing on the subject whether actual amendments to the complaint can so suffice. But since respondent has asked us to rule in its favor on the ground that petitioners’ complaint added a patent-law claim through constructive amendment, I think we should make it perfectly clear that even though respondent’s approach to the jurisdictional question is sound, its application of that approach to this case fails because the claim that was actually litigated did not arise under the patent laws. Nevertheless, since what the Court has written is not inconsistent with this view, I join its opinion.

 Title 28 U. S. C. § 1295(a)(1) grants the Federal Circuit appellate jurisdiction over final decisions of federal district courts whose jurisdiction “was based, in whole or in part, on section 1338 of this title.” Title 28 U. S. C. § 1338(a), in turn, grants the federal district courts “original jurisdiction of any civil action arising under any Act of Congress relating to pat*821ents . . . .” As the Court correctly states, ante, at 807-810, § 1338 jurisdiction, like § 1331 jurisdiction, is over claims, not issues. See H. R. Rep. No. 97-312, p. 41 (1981) (“Cases will be within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the same sense that cases are said to ‘arise under’ federal law for purposes of federal question jurisdiction. Contrast, Coastal States Marketing, Inc. v. New England Petroleum Corp., 604 F. 2d 179 (2d Cir., 1979) [Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals properly has jurisdiction over issues, not claims, arising under the Economic Stabilization Act]”).
In this context, it is important to note that the “well-pleaded complaint” rule helps ferret out claims from issues, and says nothing about whether such separation should be made only on the basis of the original complaint.

 Indeed, since it seems plain that no implied cause of action exists under § 112 — which, after all, merely describes the nature of the specifications that must be included with a patent application — a plaintiff’s attempt at gaining federal-court jurisdiction through a claim arising under § 112 *822would be properly rejected under the “artful pleading” doctrine. See, e. g., Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U. S. 667, 673-674 (1950) (“To sanction suits for declaratory relief as within the jurisdiction of the District Courts merely because, as in this case, artful pleading anticipates a defense based on federal law would contravene the whole trend of jurisdictional legislation by Congress, disregard the effective functioning of the federal judicial system and distort the limited procedural purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act”); Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U. S. 394, 397, n. 2 (1981) (District Court properly found that respondents “had attempted to avoid removal jurisdiction by ‘artful[ly]’ casting their ‘essentially federal law claims’ as state-law claims”); Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U. S. 386, 397 (1987) (“artful pleading” doctrine cannot be invoked by party attempting to justify removal on the basis of facts not alleged in the complaint); 14A C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3722, pp. 266-276 (1985); see also Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804 (1986) (incorporation of federal standard in state-law private action, when no cause of action, either express or implied, exists for violations of that federal standard, does not make the action one “arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States”).

 “Rule 15. Amended and Supplemental Pleadings.
“(b) Amendments to Conform to the Evidence. When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment; but failure so to amend does not affect the result of the trial of these issues. ...”

 “We need not decide under what circumstances, if any, a court of appeals could furnish itself a jurisdictional basis unsupported by the pleadings by deeming the complaint amended in light of the parties’ ‘express or implied consent’ to litigate a claim. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 16(b).”