Published on Sep. 25, 2024

Ryan Vacca, the John D. Lawson Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, this week published a new article, Revisiting the Federal Circuit En Banc, in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Professor Vacca’s article examines the recent move by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to abandon en banc review in utility law patents. The piece also evaluates the need for the court to revive its previous en banc practices to ensure an effective and consistent patent law landscape and to effectively guide patent stakeholders.

En banc review is when all active judges (as opposed to senior, partially retired, judges) hear a case to decide a legal issue.  Normally, the court sits in panels of three judges; when it sits en banc, all 12 active judges decide the case.  This is the way that the court changes incorrect interpretations of the law and resolves interpretative splits within certain groups of judges on the court. Since 2018, the court just sits in three-judge panels and important issues that could use the full court’s attention remain fractured, which Vacca argues isn’t good for stakeholders in the system.

To read Professor Vacca’s full article, visit: https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/assets/articlePDFs/v37.2/Spring-5-Revisiting-the-Federal-Circuit-En-Banc.pdf