Supreme Court of the United States

I'll verify the key facts about SCOTUS's patent docket before drafting.

Let me verify the current term's patent docket and recent merits rulings.

Supreme Court of the United States — Patent Litigation Profile

Court overview. The Supreme Court of the United States (One First Street NE, Washington, D.C.) is the Article III court of last resort — not a district court and not assigned to a circuit. It sits above all thirteen circuits, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which holds exclusive nationwide appellate jurisdiction over patent cases; patent appeals reach the Court almost exclusively by certiorari under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). Because the Court holds no trials, its patent "docket" is not comparable in size to any federal district's. Roughly 40–60 cert petitions per Term arise from Federal Circuit patent decisions, against 7,000–8,000 total petitions and roughly 80 grants for argument (Finnegan/IAM, Aug. 19, 2025; Gugliuzza, 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1233 (2020)). Finnegan reports that since 2015, 51 of 611 Federal Circuit patent petitions were granted (≈8%), well above the Court's overall ~1% grant rate; Gugliuzza found a 6.6% grant rate in paid patent petitions from 2002–2016, rising to ~9.2% from 2010–2016. Both cases this site tracks at the Court — Novartis v. HEC Pharm and Customedia v. DISH — are cert denials, which is the norm: the Court's patent output is overwhelmingly unexplained orders, not merits opinions.

Patent docket reputation. District-court concepts do not map here. There is no "rocket docket," no plaintiff-friendly locality, no Rule 12/1404(a) transfer practice, and no jury-versus-bench question — the Court does not find facts, hear witnesses, or construe individual claim terms. It resolves legal questions presented on the briefs and sets the doctrine district courts then apply. Its patent decisions have been structurally consequential: Markman v. Westview (1996) made claim construction a question of law for the judge; eBay v. MercExchange (2006) imposed the four-factor test for permanent injunctions and is widely credited with enabling damages-only patent litigation; TC Heartland v. Kraft (2017) tightened venue under § 1400(b) and reshuffled forum selection; Alice v. CLS Bank (2014) remains the framework for early § 101 dispositions; Halo v. Pulse (2016) and Octane Fitness v. ICON (2014) loosened standards for enhanced damages and fee awards; Oil States and SAS Institute v. Iancu (2018) upheld and constrained AIA/PTAB review; and Amgen v. Sanofi (2023) addressed § 112 enablement. The Court's recent posture has been one of abstention on hotly contested issues: repeated denials of § 101 petitions (Impact Engine, Mar. 2025; Broadband iTV and Brumfield, Apr. 21, 2025; Audio Evolution, July 2025) have left Alice intact and shifted reform to Congress (PERA), as commentators such as Skadden and Proskauer have noted.

Local rules and procedures. The Court has no local patent rules and no standing orders. The procedural features that matter to patent litigants are its own Rules (Rule 10 cert criteria; Rule 13/28 U.S.C. § 2101(c) timing; Rule 44 rehearsings), the CVSG practice in which the Solicitor General's views correlate strongly with grants (Gugliuzza), and the circuit-justice mechanism: the Chief Justice, as Circuit Justice for the Federal Circuit, rules on emergency stay and extension applications. This is not theoretical — the tracked Novartis v. HEC matter included stay applications to the Court, and Customedia's counsel sought rehearing expressly on the ground that the Court's grant in Arthrex was an "intervening circumstance of substantial or controlling effect."

Notable tracked cases. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. HEC Pharm Co. (No. 22-671) arose from the Gilenya Hatch-Waxman litigation: the Federal Circuit initially affirmed a bench-trial judgment that the patent was not invalid, then reversed itself on rehearing after a change in panel composition and held the claims lacked § 112 written description. HEC's brief in opposition argued the ruling was a fact-bound application of settled law; certiorari was denied, making the invalidity finding final. The follow-on dispute over HEC's $50 million preliminary injunction bond was resolved against HEC in Delaware (Judge Jordan) because HEC never separately appealed the order extinguishing the bond (Locke Lord/Studicata summaries). Customedia Technologies, LLC v. DISH Network (No. 20-135) sought review of § 101 ineligibility holdings on advertising/data-targeting patents; the petition was filed July 31, 2020, denied Oct. 13, 2020, and Customedia's rehearing petition was not accepted for filing on Nov. 17, 2020. On the current docket, the Court granted review in Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin — reported as its first patent merits case since Amgen (2023) — on skinny-label induced infringement, argued Apr. 29, 2026 (Gibson Dunn; Harness IP). I could not confirm the disposition of Hikma from the sources reviewed, and several § 101 and PTAB-procedure petitions remain pending (e.g., USAA v. PNC; Dolby v. Unified Patents on real-party-in-interest standing).

Judges. The relevant bench is the nine Justices; there are no per-judge Lex Machina/Unified Patents docket metrics for this Court, and the two tracked cases name no justice because cert denials are unexplained orders. Public opinion authorship is the reliable guide: Chief Justice Roberts (Circuit Justice for the Federal Circuit, handling emergency applications); Justice Thomas (author of eBay, Alice, Oil States, and Halo? — no, Halo was Justice Sotomayor, who also authored Octane Fitness); Justice Gorsuch (author of Arthrex and WesternGeco); and Justice Kavanaugh (author of Return Mail v. USPS). Retirement-era opinions include Justice Breyer's majority in Google v. Oracle (2021). I would not characterize any individual Justice as plaintiff- or defendant-friendly; I found no published empirical analysis supporting such a characterization.