Court Opinion

ID: 9477643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:28:05.035965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:58.729718
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
with whom SMITH, Circuit Judge, joins in part, dissenting in part.
I would hold that (i) this court has jurisdiction to consider Roberts' mandamus petition but (ii) I would deny that petition because of its lack of merit. In that sense I concur in the result of Chief Judge Mar-key's order.
I. Jurisdiction
For me the most significant factor is that in Roberts IV the Seventh Circuit did not finally decide the case but rather ordered a new trial. Everyone agrees that the judgment entered after that new trial will be appealable only to this court. Section 403(e) of the Federal Courts Improvement Act limiting this court's jurisdiction to a notice of appeal filed after October 1, 1982, will not apply because the judgment after the new trial ordered by the Seventh Cir*1364cuit will necessarily be entered after that date. The statute authorizing us to issue a writ of mandamus, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, gives us the authority to issue “all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of [our] respective jurisdiction[s].” In appropriate circumstances, it would be in aid of our potential appellate jurisdiction to consider the rules by which the new trial is to be held. If, for instance, the only ground for the Seventh Circuit’s reversal and ordering of a new trial in Roberts IV had been that it was error to allow the jury to consider the legal issue of obviousness, I would consider this at least a proper case to consider mandamus because that ruling is directly contrary to holdings of this court — and accordingly the new trial (ordered by the Seventh Circuit but the appeal of which could come only to us) would be governed by a rule we have held erroneous. The question would then be whether we should issue any order of mandamus or not (not necessarily all that Roberts asks).
II. Merits
I would deny the petition on its merits because that rule (that the issue of obviousness cannot be left to the jury) was (a) not the only ground of the Seventh Circuit’s reversal and directive to hold a new trial, and (b) the other grounds were not contrary to any ruling of this court or plainly erroneous. These other grounds (discussed in Roberts IV) were that (a) the jury was asked, without adequate instructions, to interpret the scope of the claim; (b) the instructions did not call upon the jury to find specific facts bearing on obviousness vel non; and (c) the so-called special interrogatories were not really such. None of these three other grounds was directly contrary, in the particular circumstances of the Roberts case, to any decision of this court, nor were any of them clearly wrong. Accordingly, we cannot say that the doctrine of law of the case is inapplicable or that there is here any warrant for setting aside the holding of the Seventh Circuit that a new trial be held because of those errors. Our past decisions follow earlier rulings of the regional circuits (in the same patent case) in comparable circumstances. See, e.g., Central Soya Co. v. Geo. A. Hormel & Co., 723 F.2d 1573, 1580-81, 220 USPQ 491, 495 (Fed.Cir.1983); Kori Corp. v. Wilco Marsh Buggies & Draglines, 761 F.2d 649, 657, 225 USPQ 985, 990 (Fed.Cir.) cert. denied, 474 U.S. 902, 106 S.Ct. 230, 88 L.Ed.2d 229 (1985).