Issa Introduces Bill to Name Main CAFC Courtroom after Judge Pauline Newman

Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet, has introduced a bill to designate courtroom 201 at the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building located at 717 Madison Place NW, Washington, DC, as the “Pauline Newman Courtroom”. Room 201 is the main courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).

The bill, titled the “Honoring Circuit Judge Pauline Newman Act of 2026” and which was introduced on August 3 to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, explains that Newman deserves the honor because she “has devoted more than seven decades to the practice of law and the advancement of American innovation.”

Newman, who turned 99 in June, has been in a bitter battle with CAFC Chief Judge, Kimberly Moore, since April 2023. IPWatchdog was the first to break the news, and the court soon published a statement responding to media reports and making previously sealed documents public.

The Judicial Council of the Federal Circuit’s September 2023 decision made official the July 31 recommendation of the Federal Circuit’s Special Committee that Newman be suspended from taking on case assignments for one year, “or at least until she ceases her misconduct and cooperates such that the Committee can complete its investigation.” It barred Newman from hearing any cases at the panel or en banc level and discredited the two independent medical reports Newman has undergone in lieu of submitting to the court’s preferred exams, calling them “not remotely an adequate substitute for the thorough medical examinations ordered by the Committee.” That suspension has been renewed twice now.

The D.C. Circuit in its August 2025 decision agreed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that judicial review of Newman’s case is 1) precluded by precedent in McBryde v. Committee to Review Circuit Council Conduct & Disability Orders of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 264 F.3d 52 (D.C. Cir. 2001) as to the statutory and as-applied constitutional challenges to the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 and 2) that Newman’s facial constitutional challenge to the Act’s case-suspension provision fails because even Newman agreed that it has other constitutional applications. But the court also took pains to point out that it was not commenting on the merits of Judge Newman’s case or whether McBryde is good law.

Newman filed a petition to the Supreme Court  in March 2026, posing two questions:

1. Does 28 U.S.C. § 357(c)’s bar on judicial review of previously issued “orders” and “determinations” apply to ultra vires acts that exceed the scope of authority conferred by the Disability Act and the Constitution?
2. Does 28 U.S.C. § 357(c)’s bar on judicial review of previously issued “orders” and “determinations” deprive a court of jurisdiction to consider claims that seek forward-looking relief to enjoin future unlawful actions?

A number of retired federal judges filed an amicus brief in support of Newman in April, focusing on question two and arguing that “permitting misconduct of the sort alleged here to proceed unchecked and unexamined by the federal courts poses a grave threat to the independence of all federal judges, particularly the 50% of judges who are 68 or older.”

However, the Court denied Newman’s petition in June. Her legal counsel has vowed to continue pursuing all available avenues for her reinstatement.

Issa’s bill recounts Newman’s 70 years of service, from her time as a research scientist with American Cyanamid Company, where she was listed as an inventor on multiple patents, to her work for FMC Corporation as Director of the Patent, Trademark, and Licensing Department and, ultimately, her appointment to the CAFC in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. Newman was the only woman to serve as chief patent counsel of a major U.S. corporation for many years during her role with FMC.

The bill text also points to numerous quotes from Newman’s colleagues praising her time on the CAFC. “A chief judge of the court observed, ‘there can be no doubt that Judge Newman is the heroine of the patent system,’ and noted that ‘many of her dissents have gone on to become the law,’” says the bill. “Another chief judge of the Federal Circuit commended her for being ‘a pioneer from the start’, and shared that ‘her dissents have great force and often persuade other colleagues over time.’”

The bill adds that even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited Newman “for inspiring women with ‘her intelligence, her diligence, her devotion to a very difficult area of the law.’”

In addition to naming the main CAFC courtroom after Newman, the bill specifies that “[a]ny reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to Courtroom 201 at the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be a reference to the ‘Pauline Newman Courtroom.’”