{"id":106,"date":"2017-07-25T16:02:50","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T20:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=106"},"modified":"2026-05-19T16:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:46:38","slug":"pluralism-on-appeal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/submit\/glj-online\/100-online\/pluralism-on-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Pluralism on Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a thoughtful\u00a0response\u00a0to my article,\u00a0<em>Rethinking Federal Circuit Jurisdiction<\/em>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/submit\/glj-online\/100-online\/innovation-aggregation-and-specialization\/\">Ori Aronson<\/a> notes that judges \u201cwork in context, be it social, cultural, or . . . institutional,\u201d and that \u201ccontext matters\u201d to their decisions.\u00a0 Indeed, the primary aim of my article was to spur a conversation about the context in which the judges of the Federal Circuit\u2014who have near plenary control over U.S. patent law\u2014decide cases.\u00a0 That context includes many matters in narrow areas of law that bear little relation to the innovation and economic concerns that should animate patent law.\u00a0 To inject those concerns into the court\u2019s province, my article introduced the concept of limited specialization, under which the Federal Circuit would retain exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases (and possibly a few other areas) while also being granted nonexclusive jurisdiction over a variety of cases that are normally appealed to the regional circuits.<\/p>\n<p>In a similarly insightful\u00a0response\u00a0to my article, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/submit\/glj-online\/100-online\/rethinking-federal-circuit-jurisdiction\/\">Cecil Quillen<\/a> is doubtful that limited specialization would fix what he calls \u201cthe Federal Circuit problem.\u201d\u00a0 Instead, he prefers the model of \u201cpolycentric decision making\u201d embraced by, most notably, Professors Craig Nard and John Duffy in their important and provocative article,\u00a0<em>Rethinking Patent Law\u2019s Uniformity Principle<\/em>.\u00a0Under that model, multiple appellate courts would decide patent cases, permitting inter-court dialogue and enhancing the possibility for self-correction when one court makes a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2019\/07\/Pluralism-on-Appeal.pdf\"><em>Pluralism on Appeal<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a thoughtful\u00a0response\u00a0to my article,\u00a0Rethinking Federal Circuit Jurisdiction,\u00a0Ori Aronson notes that judges \u201cwork in context, be it social, cultural, or . . . institutional,\u201d and that \u201ccontext matters\u201d to their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"parent":570,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-106","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24400,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106\/revisions\/24400"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}