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Abstract

The Federal Courts Improvement Act was signed into law on April 2, 1982. Set for an effective date of October 1, 1982, the result of this enactment has been the merger of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the Court of Claims into a new appellate federal court: the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Unlike most appellate courts, the jurisdiction of the new Federal Circuit is determined primarily by subject matter, rather than geography. As a result, this change in the federal judiciary will be felt directly in only a few special legal subject areas. Among these, the field of patent law is feeling perhaps the greatest impact, beginning a new era which Congress intended to begin with the Patent Act of 1952.

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