J. Thomas McCarthy and Dina Roumiantseva, “Divert All Trademark Appeals to the Federal Circuit? We Think Not, 105 TMR 1276 (2015).

My favorite paragraphs:

“Has the Federal Circuit met the goal of speaking with a single voice on challenging and difficult issues of patent law? Critics argue that it has not, because disagreements among the court’s judges have replaced disagreement among the circuits on difficult issues.”

“We think the present system of Lanham Act appeals to regional circuits is preferable because it is a federal form of the proverbial ‘laboratory of the states’ metaphor envisioned by Justice Brandeis.”

“Our analysis shows that during the five-year period 2010-2015, the 9th Circuit led the nation, with 48 cases addressing Lanham Act issues, while the Fed. Cir. decided only 28 cases … [d]uring the same time frame ….the Second and Eleventh Circuits each decided 25 cases and the Sixth Circuit had 24 cases.”

[embeddoc url=”https://www.schwimmerlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/833/2015/11/McCarthy-Article-on-CAFC-TM-Juris-1.pdf”]