Tabberone's Court Cases page.

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Federal Court System

Sometimes there's some confusion about court cases and what they affect and who they affect. We will try to explain that here.

All copyright cases are tried in federal court. Trademark cases can be tried in state court or federal court depending upon the issue. States have trademark laws that are close to federal trademark laws and if two parties are fighting over a state trademark, the case is not federal. Federal Circuits are broken up into districts, usually by state, and some states have more than one district.

Federal cases begin in the Circuit Court. A ruling from a circuit court is not binding upon any other court in that circuit or any other federal circuit. However, if an opinion is considered to be particularly detailed and legally balanced, a circuit court decision can be viewed as a precedent and will be quoted by other courts and lawyers wanting to make a similar point. Usually, this only happens at the Court Of Appeals for the circuit. A decision from an Appellate Court is binding upon the courts in that circuit but may be cited as an authority by other circuits (although not binding on other circuits).

The federal courts also have a special court for the District of Columbia and a Federal Court of Appeals.

The Federal Circuits:

1st Circuit - Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island

2nd Circuit - Connecticut, New York, Vermont

3rd Circuit - Deleware, New jersey, Pennsylvania, Virgin Islands

4th Circuit - Maryland, North Carlina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia

5th Circuit - Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas

6th Circuit - Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennesee

7th Circuit - Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin

8th Circuit - Arkansas, Iowa, Minnestota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

9th Circuit - Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Washington

10th Circuit - Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming

11th Circuit - Alabama, Florida, Georgia

The Supreme Court does not hear every case that lands on its doorstep. Most are turned away. If the Justices do not see a legal question worthy of clarification, or a new argument that needs direction, they will refuse to hear the case. If they refuse to hear a case, the Appellate Decision will have a designation on it, cert. denied, or more fully certiorari denied, meaning the petition to the Supreme Court was rejected. The average circuits are reversed by the Supreme Court is about 8-9% of the time.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is overturned twice as often as the other circuits. Supreme Court decisions are binding upon all courts in every circuit.

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Rebuttals
In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.
If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.
We made this offer a very long time ago and as of September 2008, only AnimieHot.com, in our Hall Of Shame, and Charlotte Perman (Sevenarts in our Hall Of Shame) have chosen to submit a formal rebuttal.