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Hon. Randall R. Rader
Former Chief Judge (ret.)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Randall R. Rader was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 and assumed the duties of Chief Circuit Judge on June 1, 2010 and retired from the bench on June 30, 2014. He was appointed to the United States Claims Court (now the U. S. Court of Federal Claims) by President Ronald W. Reagan in 1988.
Chief Judge Rader’s most prized title may well be “Professor Rader.” As Professor, Chief Judge Rader has taught courses on patent law and other advanced intellectual property courses at George Washington University Law School, University of Virginia School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, and other university programs in Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi, and Beijing. Due to the size and diversity of his classes, Chief Judge Rader may have taught patent law to more students than anyone else.
Chief Judge Rader has also co-authored several texts including the most widely used textbook on U. S. patent law, “Cases and Materials on Patent Law,” (St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West 3d ed. 2009) and “Patent Law in a Nutshell,” (St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West 2007) (translated into Chinese and Japanese).
Chief Judge Rader has won acclaim for leading dozens of government and educational delegations to every continent (except Antarctica), teaching rule of law and intellectual property law principles.
Chief Judge Rader has received many awards, including the Sedona Lifetime Achievement Award for Intellectual Property Law, 2009; Distinguished Teaching Awards from George Washington University Law School, 2003 and 2008 (by election of the students); the Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association, 2003; the Distinguished Service Award from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, 2003; the J. William Fulbright Award for Distinguished Public Service from George Washington University Law School, 2000; and the Younger Federal Lawyer Award from the Federal Bar Association, 1983.
Before appointment to the Court of Federal Claims, Chief Judge Rader served as Minority and Majority Chief Counsel to Subcommittees of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. From 1975 to 1980, he served as Counsel in the House of Representatives for representatives serving on the Interior, Appropriations, and Ways and Means Committees. He received a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University in 1974 and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 1978.
Recent Articles by Hon. Randall R. Rader
Rader’s Ruminations: Thoughts About the Impact of DOGE on the USPTO
In recent weeks I have frequently been asked for my thoughts on the interaction between the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). My answer is always that I am a bit concerned about the impact of DOGE on the Agency. It seems to me that a user-funded agency falls into a slightly different category with respect to government efficiency measures on the use of funds. Of course, those (steadily-rising) user fees are a form of “taxation” on the U.S. innovation system and should be part of a real drive to improve government-wide efficiency.
Rader’s Ruminations: LKQ, An Utterly Failed En Banc ‘Clarification’
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit undertook to clarify the obviousness standards for design patents. LKQ Corp. v. GM Glob. Tech. Operations LLC, __ F.4th__, No. 2021-2348, 2024 WL 2280728 (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2024). After many breathless commentaries, the record needs at least one expression of the “obvious”: this judicial effort utterly failed.
Are Patents Monopolies or Not? Part II: Residual Bias and Misnomers
Despite the basic principles that a patent does not presume market power and does establish plenary legality within its issued scope, as we learned in Part I of this two-part series, the Federal Trade Commission can and has used threats of antitrust inquiries to coerce patent owners to voluntarily forego some activities within the scope of a patent’s right to exclude.
Rader’s Ruminations: Let’s Settle It – Are Patents Monopolies or Not? Part I
The simple answer is “no”; a patent protecting a new and nonobvious invention is not an antitrust monopoly. The reason is also quite simple; an antitrust monopoly requires the unlawful capture or maintenance of market power by withdrawing products or services from the public domain, thus injuring competition in market transactions. See, e.g., Standard Oil v. U.S., 221 U.S. 1 (1910). In general terms, an antitrust monopoly requires: (1) market power (sufficient control of a market to set prices or restrain competition, but not market dominance achieved with a superior product or business acumen); (2) restricting the public domain to injure competition; and (3) illegal anticompetitive conduct to achieve these market distortions. A patent, standing alone, does not meet any of these requirements.
Rader’s Ruminations – Patent Eligibility III: Seven Times the Federal Circuit Has Struck Out
The U.S. Supreme Court’s flimsy eligibility jurisprudence offers the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) several “softball pitches” to avoid a patent bloodbath. To date, the Federal Circuit has struck out at preserving the patent system — at least twice without really even taking a swing! The first softball pitch appears in the High Court’s initial decision to exalt judge-made “exceptions” over the 200-year-old statutory rule, namely, Mayo v. Prometheus.
Upcoming Events with Hon. Randall R. Rader
IPWatchdog LIVE 2026
March 22-24, 2026