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Federal Circuit Updates Internal Operating Procedures

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revised its Internal Operating Procedures Feb. 18, changing several of its rules. Alterations were made to its procedures for merits panels, briefs and hearings in cases using protective orders, panel conferences,…

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the disposition of cases and en banc hearings and rehearings. For en banc rehearings, the court laid out the steps to be taken under which the rehearing poll is withdrawn. A poll is typically issued to the active judges for them to vote on whether a case should be given a full court hearing or rehearing. The Federal Circuit also updated its procedures for precedential and non-precedential opinions. Now, instead of sending non-precedential opinions to the administrative services office for copying and delivering to the clerk, the opinions will be sent directly to the Clerk's Office for issuance. For precedential opinions, the judges who wrote the decision will now circulate any and all opinions to the full court as opposed to each judge. If the panel of a case wants to make "major substantive changes" to an opinion in circulation, "it shall withdraw the opinion from circulation and recirculate the altered opinion to the full court for a new 10-day circulation period," the CAFC said.