Federal Circuit Can’t Go En Banc Without Newman, Her Lawyer Says

The legal nonprofit that represents suspended Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman argued her colleagues are violating the law by excluding her from deliberations as the full court takes up a patent damages appeal.

Newman is still an “active” judge under the US Supreme Court’s definition of the word even while she’s subject to a suspension, the New Civil Liberties Alliance argued in an amicus brief filed Jan. 24, and she therefore must be included in the en banc proceeding in EcoFactor Inc. v. Google LLC.

The “text, history and purpose of the statutory language authorizing en banc proceedings lead ...