Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-tsvsl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T19:57:55.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Experts Judging Experts: The Role of Expertise in Reviewing Agency Decision Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Banks Miller  and
Brett Curry
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What role does judicial subject matter expertise play in the review of agency decisions? Using a data set of decisions in which the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) is reviewed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, we investigate this question and find that greater subject matter expertise does make it more likely that a judge will vote to reverse an agency decision.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Winter 2013 , pp. 55 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Aberbach, Joel D. 1990. Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Allison, John R., and Lemley, Mark A. 2000. How Federal Judges Vote in Patent Validity Cases. Florida State University Law Review 27:745–66.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 1977. Judicial Specialization, Litigant Influence, and Substantive Policy: The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. Law and Society Review 11:823–50.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 1990. Specializing the Federal Courts: Neutral Reforms or Efforts to Shape Judicial Policy? Judicature 74:217–24.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 2005. Whither the Judiciary and American Democracy? In Institutions of American Democracy: The Judicial Branch, ed. Hall, Kermit and McGuire, Kevin, 517–42. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bawn, Kathleen. 1995. Political Control versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures. American Political Science Review 89:62–73.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, Katz, Jonathan, and Tucker, Richard. 1998. Taking Time Seriously: Time‐Series‐Cross‐Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable. American Journal of Political Science 42:1260–88.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Stuart M., and Rai, Arti K. 2007. Who's Afraid of the APA: What the Patent System Can Learn from Administrative Law. Georgetown Law Journal 95:269–336.Google Scholar
Brambor, Thomas, Clark, William, and Golder, Matt. 2006. Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses. Political Analysis 14:63–82.Google Scholar
Braumoeller, Bear. 2004. Hypothesis Testing and Multiplicative Interaction Terms. International Organizations 58:807–20.Google Scholar
Braunsberger, Karin, and Munch, James M. 1998. Source Expertise versus Experience Effects in Hospital Advertising. Journal of Services Marketing 12:23–8.Google Scholar
Cheng, Edward. 2008. The Myth of the Generalist Judge. Stanford Law Review 61:519–72.Google Scholar
Crowley, Donald W. 1987. Judicial Review of Administrative Agencies: Does the Type of Agency Matter? Western Political Quarterly 25:183–91.Google Scholar
Duffy, John F. 2007. Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional? Patently-O PatentLaw Journal 21. http://patentlyo.com/lawjournal/files/Duffy.BPAI.pdf (accessed March 21, 2011).Google Scholar
Farhang, Sean, and Wawro, Gregory. 2004. Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation under Panel Decision Making. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 20:299–330.Google Scholar
Freedman, James O. 1978. Crisis and Legitimacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gailmard, Sean. 2002. Expertise, Subversion, and Bureaucratic Discretion. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 18:536–55.Google Scholar
Giles, Micheal W., Hettinger, Virginia A., and Peppers, Todd. 2001. Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas. Political Research Quarterly 54:623–41.Google Scholar
Goodsell, Charles T. 2003. The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic, 4th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Griliches, Zvi. 1990. Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey. Journal of Economic Literature 28:1661–1707.Google Scholar
Hansen, Wendy, Johnson, Renee, and Unah, Isaac. 1995. Specialized Courts, Bureaucratic Agencies, and the Politics of U.S. Trade Policy. American Journal of Political Science 39:529–57.Google Scholar
Hedlund, Julie A. 2007. Patents Pending: Patent Reform for the Innovation Economy. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation 1–26.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Robert B. 1994. Judicial Review of Regulatory Decisions: The Changing Criteria. Political Science Quarterly 109:133–69.Google Scholar
Howard, Robert M. 2005. Comparing the Decision Making of Specialized Courts and General Courts: An Exploration of Tax Decisions. Justice System Journal 26:135–48.Google Scholar
Howell, William G., and Lewis, David E. 2002. Agencies by Presidential Decision. Journal of Politics 64:1095–1114.Google Scholar
Humphries, Martha Anne, and Songer, Donald R. 1999. Law and Politics in Judicial Oversight of Federal Administrative Agencies. Journal of Politics 61:207–20.Google Scholar
Jacoby, J., Troutman, T., Kuss, A., and Mazursky, D. 1986. Experience and Expertise in Complex Decision Making. In Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 13, ed. Lutz, R. J., 469–72. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Tomz, Michael, and Wittenberg, Jason. 2000. Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44:347–61.Google Scholar
Landes, William M., and Posner, Richard A. 2003. The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Legomsky, Stephen H. 1990. Specialized Justice: Courts, Administrative Tribunals, and a Cross‐National Theory of Specialization. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Light, Paul C. 1995. Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Light, Paul C. 1999. The True Size of Government. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Mandel, Gregory N. 2006. Patently Non‐Obvious: Empirical Demonstration that Hindsight Bias Renders Patent Decisions Irrational. Ohio State Law Journal 67:1391–463.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edwin. 1986. Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study. Management Science 32:173–81.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edwin, Schwartz, Mark, and Wagner, Samuel. 1981. Imitation Costs and Patents: An Empirical Study. Economic Journal 91:907–18.Google Scholar
McGraw, Kathleen M., and Pinney, Neil. 1990. The Effects of General and Domain‐Specific Expertise on Political Memory and Judgment. Social Cognition 8:9–30.Google Scholar
McNollgast. 1987. Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3:243–77.Google Scholar
Miller, Banks, and Curry, Brett. 2009. Expertise, Experience, and Ideology on Specialized Courts: The Case of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Law and Society Review 43:839–64.Google Scholar
Moe, Terry. 1989. The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure. In Can the Government Govern? ed. Chubb, John and Patterson, Paul, 267–329. Washington, DC: Brooking Institution Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Kimberly. 2001. Are District Court Judges Equipped to Resolve Patent Cases? Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 15:1–40.Google Scholar
Norton, Edward, Wang, Hua, and Ai, Chunrong. 2004. Computing Interaction Effects and Standard Errors in Logit and Probit Models. Stata Journal 4:154–67.Google Scholar
Peters, B. Guy. 2001. The Politics of Bureaucracy, 5th ed. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1997. Congress: A Political‐Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard. 1999. The Federal Courts: Challenge and Reform, 2d ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard. 2008. How Judges Think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Revesz, Richard A. 1997. Environmental Regulation, Ideology and the D.C. Circuit. Virginia Law Review 83:1717–72.Google Scholar
Robinson, Glen O. 1991. American Bureaucracy: Public Choice and Public Law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Rourke, Francis E. 1992. Responsiveness and Neutral Competence in American Bureaucracy. Public Administration Review 52:539–46.Google Scholar
Sag, Matthew J., Jacobi, Tonja, and Stych, Maxim. 2007. The Effect of Judicial Ideology in Intellectual Property Cases. http://ssrn.com/abstract=997963 (accessed March 21, 2011).Google Scholar
Schacht, Wendy H., and Thomas, John R. 2005. CRS Report for Congress: Patent Law and its Applicability to the Pharmaceutical Industry: An Examination of the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (“The Hatch‐Waxman Act”). Washington DC: Congressional Research Service. http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/rl3076701102005.pdf (accessed March 21, 2011).Google Scholar
Scheb, John M., and Scheb, John M. II. 2005. Law and the Administrative Process. Belmont, CA: Thomson‐Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Schuk, Peter H. 1994. Foundations of Administrative Law. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Reginald S. 1990. Administrative Agencies and the Court: A Reexamination of the Impact of Agency Type on Decisional Outcomes. Western Political Quarterly 43:875–85.Google Scholar
Shipan, Charles R. 2004. Regulatory Regimes, Agency Actions, and the Conditional Nature of Congressional Influence. American Political Science Review 98:467–80.Google Scholar
Smith, Joseph L. 2005. Congress Opens the Courthouse Doors: Statutory Changes to Judicial Review under the Clean Air Act. Political Research Quarterly 58:139–49.Google Scholar
Spriggs, James F. II. 1996. The Supreme Court and Federal Administrative Agencies: A Resource‐Based Theory and Analysis of Judicial Impact. American Journal of Political Science 40:1122–51.Google Scholar
Staudt, Nancy, Epstein, Lee, and Wiedenbeck, Peter. 2006. The Ideological Component of Judging in the Taxation Context. Washington University Law Review 84:1797–821.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R., Schkade, David, and Ellman, Lisa Michelle. 2004. Ideological Voting on Federal Courts of Appeals: A Preliminary Investigation. Virginia Law Review 90:301–54.Google Scholar
Tolley, Michael. 2003. Judicial Review of Agency Interpretation of Statutes: Deference Doctrines in Comparative Perspective. Policy Studies Journal 31:421–40.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, Wittenberg, Jason, and King, Gary. 2001. CLARIFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results, Version 2.0. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Unah, Isaac. 1998. The Courts of International Trade: Judicial Specialization, Expertise, and Bureaucratic Policy‐Making. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Alan E. 2009. Delegation and Positive Sum Bureaucracies. Journal of Politics 71:998–1014.Google Scholar
Yates, Jeff. 1999. Presidential Bureaucratic Power and Supreme Court Justice Voting. Political Behavior 21:349–66.Google Scholar

Cases Cited

Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).Google Scholar
Dickinson v. Zurko, 527 U.S. 150 (1999).Google Scholar
Eli Lilly v. Zenith Goldline Pharms., 471 F.3d 1369 (2007).Google Scholar
KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Appendix R Patent Rules; fees. 37 C.F.R. § 41.20.Google Scholar
Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. 35 U.S.C. § 6.Google Scholar
Conditions for Patentability. 35 U.S.C. § 103.Google Scholar