Court adjudication is the only method for resolving patent disputes---that’s necessary for functional law that enables innovation

The principal goal of the American patent system is to stimulate innovation, as manifested in the Constitution's articulation of Congress's power "To promote the Progress of … useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to … Inventors the exclusive Right to their … writings and discoveries." Stimulation occurs by rewarding inventors with a time-limited exclusive patent right for taking two steps they typically would not otherwise take: to invent in the first instance and to reveal information to the public about these inventions, thereby enabling other innovators to build on earlier insights. The government will grant a utility patent for an invention only if it is novel, nonobvious "at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art," and "useful." The Patent Act also requires disclosure of certain content within the patent by calling for a "written description," "enablement," and "best mode." The written-description requirement ensures that the inventor is in possession of the claimed invention. To enable the invention, the patent applicant must demonstrate in the specification to "any person skilled in the [relevant] art [how] … to make and use the [invention]" without "undue experimentation." Also, the patent applicant must set out "the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention." The best mode requirement is met so long as the [*1451] patent document objectively discloses the best mode that the inventor subjectively conceived by the time the inventor filed the patent application. Patents are granted after successfully undergoing examination by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), an administrative agency within the Department of Commerce, to ascertain that an invention meets the patentability conditions and that the description in the patent application satisfies the disclosure requirements. The patent's scope is defined principally by its claims, which "particularly point[] out and distinctly claim[] the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention." The patent right permits the patentee to exclude others from practicing the invention claimed in the patent for a term of typically twenty years from the date the patent application was filed. With this primer on substantive patent law, I turn to the institutional structure of patent litigation, focusing on both district courts and the Federal Circuit. Section A sets out the venue rules in the district courts. Section B discusses the Federal Circuit, the centralized and specialized appeals court for almost all patent litigation. Section C then describes the interaction between the district courts and the Federal Circuit by laying out the standards under which the Federal Circuit reviews patent decisions by the district courts. A. Venue Rules in District Courts Patent litigation is generally distinct from other federal causes of action, in that there is but one choice - the Federal Circuit - for almost all appeals from whichever district court a litigant chose as the court in the first instance. However, given patent law's permissive venue rules, a patent plaintiff may frequently choose to initiate a lawsuit in virtually any federal district court. [*1452] In the American patent system, the power to adjudicate patent disputes is vested exclusively in the federal courts. Venue rules dictate which of these courts can entertain particular patent cases, assuming personal jurisdiction over the defendants also exists in that court. Venue rules typically seek to ensure a convenient forum for litigation, particularly for the defendant, who has been haled into court, but these rules differ depending on the type of patent suit and status of the defendant.