U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit CAFC

The Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982 created the Federal Circuit on October 1, 1982 by merging the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals with the appellate division of the old Court of Claims. Congress wanted a single court to bring uniformity to patent law, which had been applied inconsistently by the regional circuits. It is an Article III court with twelve active judges who serve for life, and it sits in Washington.

Unlike the other twelve courts of appeals, its jurisdiction is set by subject matter. It hears all appeals in patent cases from district courts nationwide, appeals from the Patent and Trademark Office, the Court of International Trade, the Court of Federal Claims, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the Merit Systems Protection Board for federal employee cases, and the International Trade Commission. That makes it, in practice, the country's most important patent court, since the Supreme Court hears only a few patent cases a year.

Its specialized docket gives it outsized influence over the technology and pharmaceutical industries and over trade policy, including the 2025 tariff litigation it heard en banc. Since 2023 the court has also drawn attention for the suspension of Judge Pauline Newman, then in her nineties, over the court's concerns about her fitness, which she challenged as a violation of judicial independence.