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October 9, 2012

Small Beer

The CAFC went tribal in Beer v. United States (2010-5012). The CAFC convened en banc to give judges within its purview cost-of-living pay increases, capped by long-winded rationalization. The gall was too much for Judges Dyk and Bryson, who dissented, observing that the ruling runs against both statute and Supreme Court precedence. "Under the Will's bright-line vesting rule [by SCOTUS], Congress was free to "abandon" a statutory formula and revoke a planned cost-of-living adjustment ("COLA"), as long as the revoking legislation was enacted into law before the COLA 'took effect.'" This same disregard for rule of law is regularly visited upon patent cases, which are routinely decided by bias.

Posted by Patent Hawk at October 9, 2012 10:02 PM | Case Law