THERE SURE SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF CRONYISM THESE DAYS: Top Patent Judge Steps Down Over Ethics Scandal, Highlighting How Federal Circuit Has Become Too Close To Patent Lawyers. “CAFC was created in the early 1980s under the belief that a more “specialized” court could better handle the more complicated technical issues related to patents. But what really happened is that it basically built a club of patent-friendly judges, who spent nearly all of their time with patent lawyers, and thus took an increasingly patent-friendly view of the world. That one of the key original judges on CAFC was also a long-time well known patent lawyer who almost single-handedly wrote the 1952 Patent Act, seemed to set the tone that has remained throughout the court’s existence.”

This kind of “judicial capture” is why I generally disfavor specialty courts.