Court Opinion

ID: 9495147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:55:26.316059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:50.261117
License: Public Domain

DYK, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority’s opinion because I agree that we are bound by our decision in Bayer AG. v. Biovail Corp., 279 F.3d 1340, 61 USPQ2d 1675 (Fed.Cir.2002), to apply regional circuit law to res judicata and collateral estoppel issues.2 I have serious *1336doubts, however, as to whether that is the correct result.
Although we apply regional circuit law to purely procedural issues, we apply Federal Circuit law to non-patent issues where “the disposition of nonpatent-law issues is affected by the special circumstances of the patent law setting in which those issues arise.” Midwest Indus., Inc. v. Karavan Trailers, Inc., 175 F.3d 1356, 1360, 50 USPQ2d 1672, 1675 (Fed.Cir.1999) (en banc). Such a relationship has been found to -exist in a number of areas. For example on personal jurisdiction questions, we have applied our own law, see Hildebrand v. Steck Mfg. Co., 279 F.3d 1351, 1354, 61 USPQ2d 1696, 1698 (Fed.Cir.2002). We do so in order to “promot[e] uniformity in the field of patent law....” Midwest Indus., 175 F.3d at 1360, 50 USPQ2d at. 1676. Although the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc., — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1889, 153 L.Ed.2d 13 (2002) may make that uniformity more elusive, it is still important.
Res judicata and collateral estoppel questions are affected by and closely related to patent law questions. Moreover, they may be outcome determinative. In this particular ease, it is unlikely that there is a variation in the collateral estop-pel rules in the various regional circuits. But it is not' difficult to imagine other cases in which different res judicata and collateral estoppel rules would be applied depending on the regional circuit forum, and that the existence of these different rules could affect forum selection. Patent litigants often have a wide choice of fora. There is simply no reason why an earlier patent judgment should have one consequence in the Third Circuit and another in the Seventh Circuit, for example. Such an approach encourages the very forum shopping that our regional circuit law approach was designed to prevent. See Midwest Indus., 175 F.3d at 1359, 50 USPQ2d at 1675.
I would apply uniform Federal Circuit law to determine the effect of previous patent litigation.

. Footnote 4 of the decision in Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 170 F.3d 1373, 50 USPQ2d 1033 (Fed.Cir.1999), on which Bayer relied, suggested that we should apply regional circuit law on some collateral estoppel issues and not on others. See id. at 1381 n. 4 ("Application of Blonder-Tongue [Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U.S. 313, 91 S.Ct. 1434, 28 L.Ed.2d 788 (1971) ], being an issue of patent law, is a matter within our exclusive jurisdiction and is hence subject to this court’s law. However, because the application of general collateral estoppel principles, such as finality of judgment, is not a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of this court, we must apply the law of the circuit in which the district court here sits....").