The courage to think freely: Judge Pauline Newman on judicial independence and scientific integrity

Although American Chemical Society archives indicate that the society has had a committee on patents almost continuously since 1899, it was not until 1966 that the Committee on Patent Matters and Related Legislation was formally created under the leadership of Pauline Newman. Over time, the committee’s focus expanded to all areas of intellectual property law—patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets—and its name changed to the Committee on Patents and Related Matters (CPRM). At the committee’s inception, Newman was already a well-regarded chemist, having earned her PhD in chemistry from Yale in 1952 and having worked as a research scientist at American Cyanamid. Later, at FMC, she worked as a patent agent and, after attending law school at New York University, as a patent attorney. She was also extremely active in the ACS, becoming an ACS councilor and serving on the board of directors from 1973 to 1981 where she “discovered the satisfactions of public service.” Her career took a major turn in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan appointed her as a judge at the newly formed US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which had been created to hear appeals from the country’s numerous district courts in all patent disputes.Judge Newman’s greatest contributions to the law, particularly patent law, stem from her refusal to simply go along with consensus views—her “judicial independence.” Her dissents are famous for their intellectual clarity and meticulous reasoning. Again and again, the Supreme Court has adopted her once-minority views, including as recently as 2024.