Patent Lawyer Offers to Defend Judge Vaden's Decision Rejecting Redaction Request at CAFC
Patent attorney Andrew Dhuey offered to appear as amicus curiae at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to defend Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden's decision rejecting an unopposed motion to redact certain confidential information from the merits decision on an AD/CVD injury determination. Dhuey, who is on the trade court's roster of pro bono counsel, said he would like to be appointed by CAFC to defend Vaden's decision, "arguing on behalf of the public interest in judicial transparency" (CVB, Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1504).
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Vaden refused to redact certain business proprietary information in his December 2023 decision, finding that all the information alleged to be proprietary either hadn't been properly bracketed by the International Trade Commission during the trial or was publicly available (see 2401090046). The case has sparked great interest on appeal, drawing amicus briefs from the ITC Trial Lawyers Association (see 2410090048) and the Customs and International Trade Bar Association (see 2410080055).
Dhuey said that "it appears that no party has or will defend Judge Vaden's decision before this Court." The attorney, who works in California as a sole practitioner, said it "would be in the public's interest and the interest of justice for the Court to decide this appeal with the benefit of a rebuttal to the unanimous view of the government and both amici bar associations."
The attorney then cited a 1993 concurrence from Justice Antonin Scalia, which says that while harmony among litigants is "heartwarming and even (since it reduces the number and length of briefs) environmentally sound, it may encourage us to make bad law."