Court Opinion

ID: 9494900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:36.980247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:41.508137
License: Public Domain

CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges LOURIE, SCHALL, GAJARSA, DYK
join, concurring.
Judge Newman has a different view of this case than I do. It is incorrect to characterize our decision today as announcing a new rule. It is equally incorrect to characterize our decision today as a mutinous act in the light of the Supreme *1056Court’s decision in Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 339 U.S. 605, 70 S.Ct. 854, 94 L.Ed. 1097 (1950). For the reasons stated in the opinions for the court and by Judge Dyk, our decision is not inconsistent with Graver Tank.
We did not take the case en banc to make new law. The law followed by the court in this case is old law. This law was old law when we decided Maxwell v. J. Baker, Inc., 86 F.3d 1098 (Fed.Cir.1996), for the reasons so aptly stated in the Maxwell opinion. Id. at 1106-07. We took this case en banc because the parties and the district court perceived conflict between Judge Lourie’s opinion for the court in Maxwell and Judge Newman’s opinion for the court in a later case, YBM Magnex, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, 145 F.3d 1317 (Fed.Cir.1998).
An important task of this court is, to ensure uniformity in the application of our precedent. We perform this task when we reassure the district courts and the bar that our previous decision in Maxwell states the correct rule. For the reasons stated in the court’s opinion in this case, it is not possible for the older holding in Maxwell to live comfortably with the newer holding in YBM Magnex. Our choice in this case was simple: whether to overrule Maxwell or YBM Magnex.