Empirical Analysis of Judicial Opinions: Methodology, Metrics, and the Federal Circuit

Despite the popularity of empirical studies of the Federal Circuit's patent law decisions, a comprehensive picture of those decisions has only recently begun to emerge. Historically, the literature has largely consisted of individual studies that provide just a narrow slice of quantitative data relating to a specific patent law doctrine. Even studies that take a more holistic approach to the Federal Circuit's jurisprudence primarily focus on their own results and address the findings of other studies only briefly. While recent developments in the field hold great promise, one important but yet unexplored dimension is the use of multiple studies to form a complete and rigorously supported understanding of particular attributes of the court's decisions.