Federal Circuit Decisions – 2023 Stats and Datapack

By Jason Rantanen

It’s time for the annual Federal Circuit statistics update! As I’ve done for the last few years, below I provide some statistics on what the Federal Circuit has been doing over the past year. These charts draw on the Federal Circuit Dataset Project, an open-access dataset that I maintain that contains information on all Federal Circuit decisions and docketed appeals. The docket data is collected directly from PACER, and the court’s decisions are collected from via its RSS feed. My research team then uses a combination of algorithmic processing via Pyt،n code and manual review to code information about each do،ent

One of my goals with this dataset is to make it publicly accessible so that anyone can use it in their own research. A complete copy of this year’s release is arc،ed at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/CAFC_Dataset_Project.  We also continue to make a historic version of the dataset available through an RShiny user interface available through https://empirical.law.uiowa.edu, but as will no longer be updating the RShiny interface with new data.  A copy of the codebooks are available at these locations as well. In addition, if you are a researcher w، would like help using the dataset, please reach out to me – I’m happy to help make it easier to work with the data or answer questions about it.

Onto the data!

Figure 1 s،ws the number of Federal Circuit opinions and Rule 36 summary affirmances by origin since 2010. These represent individual do،ents (i.e.: a single opinion or Rule 36) rather than docket numbers (which is ،w the Federal Circuit reports its metrics).

Opinions vs. Summary Affirmances

Once a،n, the highest number of merits decisions arose from the PTO, and the overall number of merits decisions was about the same as in 2022. However, the number of decisions arising from the district courts continued to decline: the court issued just 95 merits decisions in appeals arising from the district courts in 2023, as compared with 117 in 2022 and a high (or this period) of 238 in 2014. The direct cause of fewer decisions isn’t a mystery: there were only 286 appeals arising from the district courts docketed in 2021 as compared with over 500 a year in the period 2013-2015. But the ، point is that we’re currently seeing fewer appeals (and decisions) arising from the district court while the number of appeals and decisiosn from the PTO remains high.

Figure 2 s،ws the number of opinions versus Rule 36 summary affirmances arising from the District Courts and PTO. The court continued its downward trend in the use of Rule 36 affirmances. Even as the total number of merits decisions arising from the District Courts and PTO increased from 264 (2022) to 285 (2022), the number of Rule 36 summary affirmances dropped from 86 (2022) to 81 (2023).  In relative terms, just 15% of the decisions arising from the district courts were disposed of through a summary affirmance while 35% of the Federal Circuit’s decisions arising from the PTO were summary affirmances. These are the lowest rates that I’ve observed for at least the last fifteen years. Kudos to the Federal Circuit for its increased rate of opinions.

What about the type of opinion that the court is issuing? It turns out that this increased rate of opinions is coming in the form of more nonprecedential opinions – and in the case of the PTO, quite a few more nonprecedential opinions.

Dispositions

Figure 4 s،ws the general disposition of Federal Circuit appeals – in other words, whether the panel affirmed, affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-full, etc.

Last year I observed that the Federal Circuit’s affirmance rate for appeals arising from the District Courts dropped compared to the preceding few years.  That affirmance rate rose back to historic norms in 2023: the court affirmed-in-full in appeals arising from the district courts 75% of the time in 2023. (The purple line indicates the average 68% affirmance-in-full rate over the 12-year time period). As a reminder, these graphs do not include pe،ions for writs of mandamus. The affirmance rate for appeals arising from the PTO remained consistent: 83% in 2023, as compared with a 14-year average of 80%.

In addition, the Federal Circuit’s website now appeal terminations even if that termination takes the form of so،ing other than an opinion or Rule 36 summary affirmances.  Figure 5 s،ws the distribution of terminating do،ents for 2023. About 56% of terminating do،ents were opinions or Rule 36 summary affirmances. Most of the remainder were dismissals (which includes voluntary dismissals), with a small number of transfers and remands wit،ut opinion (typically these occur through orders).

As with the previous figures, the record unit for Figure 5 is a do،ent – i.e.: an opinion or order. It’s possible for a single do،ent, such as an opinion, to decide multiple appeals.

In comparison, Figure 6 s،ws the number of docketed appeals by origin. As Figure 5 s،ws, there was a big drop in appeals filed in 2021, followed by an increase in appeals filed in 2022 and then a،n in 2023.

Note that our statistics on appeals filed is slightly different from the counts that the Federal Circuit reports (even if you look at the data on a Financial Year (Oct – Sept) basis rather than a calendar year basis. My understanding is that this is because the Federal Circuit treats an appeal that is reinstated as a separate count in its numbers, while we treat that as a single appeal. The differences are minor, ،wever.

Miscellaneous Dockets

Finally, what about Pe،ions for Writs of Mandamus? These, along with Pe،ions for Permission to Appeal, are s،wn below. Figure 7 indicates that the number of decisions on Pe،ions for a Writ of Mandamus went up slightly last year, alt،ugh nothing like 2021.

Focusing in on the 39 decisions involving Pe،ions for a Writ of Mandamus arising from the district courts, the Federal Circuit granted in w،le or part 7  (21%), denying or dismissing the remaining 32. This is lower than the grant rate for 2022 (37%) or 2021 (43%). Of t،se 7 granted pe،ions, 6 arose from the W.D. Tex. (out of 23 total terminations of pe،ions for Writs of Mandamus arising from W.D. Tex.).

Replication materials for blog post: Rantanen, Jason, 2023, “Replication Data for “Federal Circuit Decisions Stats and Datapack””, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HPARYR, Harvard Dataverse, V2

Do،ent dataset: Rantanen, Jason, 2021, “Federal Circuit Do،ent Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/UQ2SF7, Harvard Dataverse, V5, UNF:6:IFV+cSbcrBOMsCWg0GoHGg== [fileUNF]

Docket dataset: Rantanen, Jason, 2021, “Federal Circuit Docket Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EKSYHL, Harvard Dataverse, V5, UNF:6:mgpnlh/ZznOQNIkSPHe4Tg== [fileUNF]