Donald Dunner Rejects Call for Ending Exclusive Federal Circuit Patent Jurisdiction

Finnegan partner Donald R. Dunner spoke with Bloomberg BNA about his Nov. 13 speech that rebutted comments by Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Diane P. Wood. In September, she called for an end to the Federal Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction in patent appeals. Dunner recalls the “bad old days”, as Wood said, before the Federal Circuit, when “appellants choose whether to bring their case to the Federal Circuit or to the circuit in which the district court case was adjudicated.” At the time, he served on the presidential advisory committee that recommended the court’s formation, and as former chairman of the Federal Circuit advisory committee, he helped shape the court’s rules.

"The current system is working well. The experiment has been a success,” Dunner told BNA. “The Federal Circuit has totally revolutionized the patent field so that it has moved from the backwaters to the mainstream. It has gotten major law firms clamoring to add successful intellectual property to their practices.” He recapped his rebuttal to Judge Wood’s positions on the quality of opinions, percolation of ideas among judges, jurisprudence on claim construction and obviousness, copyright and trademark jurisdiction, and attitudinal differences. Dunner concluded, “I think it’s critical that the Federal Circuit continue pretty much along the path it is now occupying.”