The Patent Pilot Program: Congress-Induced Specialization on the Federal District Courts.

Congress established the Patent Cases Pilot Program in 2011 "to encourage enhancement of expertise in patent cases." Essentially, the program allows judges in 14 U.S. District Courts to specialize in patent litigation if they wish to do so. As such, it represents an ongoing natural experiment of sorts on specialization's possible implications for judicial policymaking. In this paper we offer an initial, primarily descriptive account of this ten year pilot program. In that account, we consider the characteristics of those judges who have opted into the program, assess factors that may help explain their self-selection into it, and discuss the program's possible implications for judicial efficiency and policymaking. Once sufficient case data has been accumulated, we plan to supplement the present paper with more refined quantitative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]