Court Opinion

ID: 9780720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:39:13.199309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:09.435303
License: Public Domain

DYK, Circuit Judge,
with whom NEWMAN and LOURIE, Circuit Judges, join, concurs in the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.
Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 809, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988), federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1338 exists if “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.” We have followed Christian-son in subsequent cases involving legal malpractice, holding that federal jurisdiction exists, for example, “when the adjudication of the malpractice claim requires the court to address the merits of the plaintiffs underlying patent infringement lawsuit,” Warrior Sports, Inc. v. Dickinson Wright, P.L.L.C., 631 F.3d 1367, 1371 (Fed.Cir.2011), and when a “claim drafting error is a necessary element of the malpractice cause of action,” Immunocept, LLC v. Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP, 504 F.3d 1281, 1285 (Fed.Cir.2007). In so holding, we have recognized the strong federal interest in patent law uniformity as manifested by Congress’s decision to give exclusive jurisdiction to the federal district courts and on appeal to this court. See Immunocept, 504 F.3d at 1285-86; Air Measurement Techs., Inc. v. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, L.L.P., 504 F.3d *10261262, 1272 (Fed.Cir.2007); see also USPPS, Ltd. v. Avery Dennison Corp., 647 F.3d 274, 284 (5th Cir.2011). All of the malpractice cases that we have held are within the scope of section 1338 as pleaded have required the resolution of substantive patent law issues.1 The existence of these issues necessarily makes the issues “substantial” within the meaning of Christianson, 486 U.S. at 809, 108 S.Ct. 2166, and indicates a “serious federal interest” in federal adjudication within the meaning of Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Manufacturing, 545 U.S. 308, 313, 125 S.Ct. 2363, 162 L.Ed.2d 257 (2005).
Judge O’Malley’s dissent, in arguing that section 1338 does not confer jurisdiction over malpractice claims dependent on federal patent law, minimizes the substantial federal interest in federal adjudication of the patent law issues in these cases. Patent-related malpractice claims necessarily involve attorney conduct before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) or before the federal courts (because of our exclusive jurisdiction), and there is a substantial federal interest in ensuring that federal patent law questions are correctly and uniformly resolved in determining the standards for attorney conduct in these proceedings, even when the patent law issue is case-specific.2 See generally Grable, 545 U.S. 308, 125 S.Ct. 2363. Indeed, attorney conduct in patent eases is implicated by the patent law itself, such as by the doctrine of inequitable conduct, the exceptional-case statute, and the statutory provisions authorizing regulation of PTO practice. See Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 649 F.3d 1276, 1290 (Fed.Cir.2011) (en banc) (noting that an attorney’s submissions to the PTO may be a basis for an inequitable conduct finding); Brooks Furniture Mfg., Inc. v. Dutailier Int’l, Inc., 393 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed.Cir. 2005) (noting that attorney misconduct may be a predicate for an exceptional ease finding under 35 U.S.C. § 285); Carter v. ALK Holdings, Inc., 605 F.3d 1319, 1324 (Fed.Cir.2010) (“The standards for practice before the PTO are governed by federal law----”). So too all federal patent rights are created by actions of a federal agency, the PTO. See Grable, 545 U.S. at 315,125 S.Ct. 2363 (“The Government thus has a direct interest in the availability of a federal forum to vindicate its own administrative action.... ”).
State court decisions imposing attorney discipline for conduct before the PTO and *1027in federal patent litigation based on an incorrect interpretation of patent law are almost certain to result in differing standards for attorney conduct and to impair the patent bar’s ability to properly represent clients in proceedings before the PTO and in the federal courts. Denying federal jurisdiction over these cases would allow different states to reach different conclusions as to the requirements for federal patent law in the context of state malpractice proceedings. There is a substantial federal interest in preventing state courts from imposing incorrect patent law standards for proceedings that will exclusively occur before the PTO and the federal courts. To be sure, with some exceptions,3 state law governing attorney malpractice is not preempted by federal law. See Kroll v. Finnerty, 242 F.3d 1359, 1366 (Fed.Cir.2001). But this hardly lessens the significant federal interest in the correct and uniform interpretation of federal patent law in the course of such state malpractice proceedings. That important interest supports recognizing federal jurisdiction where the outcome of the proceeding depends on an interpretation of federal patent law, and demonstrates that such adjudication does not upset the federal-state balance. See Christianson, 486 U.S. at 809,108 S.Ct. 2166.
I see no reason to revisit this court’s repeated holdings that where the outcome of malpractice cases turns on federal patent law, federal jurisdiction exists.

. See, e.g., Warrior Sports, 631 F.3d at 1372 ("[T]o prove the proximate cause and injury elements of its tort claim, Michigan law requires [plaintiff] to show that it would have prevailed on its infringement claim....”); Carter v. ALK Holdings, Inc., 605 F.3d 1319, 1325 (Fed.Cir.2010) ("[T]he determination of [the patent attorney's] compliance with the MPEP and the CFR is a necessaiy element of [plaintiff's] malpractice cause of action....”); Davis v. Brouse McDowell, L.P.A., 596 F.3d 1355, 1360 (Fed.Cir.2010) ("[Plaintiff] can prevail only by proving that U.S. patents would have issued on her applications but for Defendants' malpractice—i.e., that her inventions were patentable under U.S. law.”); Touchcom, Inc. v. Bereskin & Parr, 574 F.3d 1403, 1413 (Fed.Cir.2009) ("[Plaintiff] will be required to show that, had appellees not omitted a portion of the source code from its application, the resulting U.S. patent would not have been held invalid.”); Immunocept, 504 F.3d at 1285 ("[T]here is no way [plaintiff] can prevail without addressing claim scope.”); Air Measurement Techs., 504 F.3d at 1269 (”[T]he district court will have to adjudicate, hypothetically, the merits of the infringement claim.”).

. In contrast, trademark-related malpractice claims such as those at issue in Singh v. Duane Morris LLP, 538 F.3d 334 (5th Cir.2008), can involve conduct before the state courts. The Fifth Circuit specifically noted that the federal interest in patent cases is thus more substantial than in trademark cases. Id. at 340.

. See Sperry v. Fla. ex rel. Fla. Bar, 373 U.S. 379, 385, 83 S.Ct. 1322, 10 L.Ed.2d 428 (1963) (holding that Florida could not exercise "a virtual power of review” over PTO practice by prohibiting nonlawyers from engaging in patent practice).