SHOULD WE HAVE FEDERAL CIRCUIT LAWFOR REVIEWING JMOL MOTIONS ARISING FROM PATENT LAW CASES?

A motion for judgment as a matter of law is a procedural tool which is used by a movant to see whether a trial judge thinks sufficient evidence exists to support a jury’s verdict. When a district court’s JMOL decision is appealed, an appellate court will apply its own review standard to the appeal. The problem comes when the Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over an appeal from a district court. This is because the Federal Circuit has to decide whether to apply its own case law or regional circuit case law. In this article, the observation of how the Federal Circuit reviews JMOL appeals where the substantive legal issue is a patent law issue will be presented. The inconsistency of the Federal Circuit’s current choice-of-law practice regarding JMOL is found and proved. And, a suggestion of developing the Federal Circuit case law regarding JMOL is provided and followed by several factual observations and policy reasons.