US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a federal appellate court with nationwide jurisdiction over cases involving patent law, international trade, government contracts, federal employment, veterans' benefits, and other specialized areas of federal law. The court provides public access to opinions and orders online from 2004 to present, with full case records accessible via PACER for cases filed after March 1, 2012. The PACER system offers developer APIs including the Authentication API and the Case Locator (PCL) API for programmatic access to federal case data across all federal courts.
Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.
API Evangelist profiles US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit the way a machine reads it — 32 machine-readable artifacts across 3 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit scores 46.7/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 7/100 (human only). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
How we profile US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 3
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
PACER - Public Access to Court Electronic Records
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) provides online access to U.S. Federal Court case and docket information from Federal Courts including the U.S. Court of Appeal...
Federal Circuit Opinions and Orders
Public access to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinions, orders, and judgments. Includes precedential opinions, Rule 36 judgments, non-ministerial orders, and er...
Federal Circuit Case Records
Case information and records for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Cases filed on or after March 1, 2012, are available through PACER or at public terminals in ...
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
FinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Features 6
The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.
Notable capabilities this provider offers.
PACER Case Locator API
Programmatic access to the nationwide federal court case index via the PACER Case Locator (PCL) API, enabling searches for cases and associated parties across all federal courts...
PACER Authentication API
API allowing automated authentication to PACER without a user interface, enabling programmatic access to court records using PACER credentials.
CM/ECF Electronic Filing
Court's electronic filing system (CM/ECF) for filing and managing case documents. Provides XML tags and NextGen CM/ECF integration.
Online Opinions and Orders
Free public access to all Federal Circuit opinions, orders, and judgments published from October 2004 to present in PDF format.
Scheduled Cases Calendar
Online calendar of scheduled oral argument cases and courtroom assignments at the Federal Circuit.
Statistical Reports
Aggregated case statistics and reports available through the court's media and public information pages, plus data request process.
Semantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Spectral Rules 1
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
JSON Schema 3
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
JSON Structure 3
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
Cafc Case Structure
JSON STRUCTURECafc Docket Entry Structure
JSON STRUCTURECafc Opinion Structure
JSON STRUCTUREExamples 3
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Security Posture 1
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Use Cases 5
What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.
What developers build with this provider.
Patent Case Legal Research
Researching Federal Circuit patent law precedent using published opinions, orders, and PACER case dockets.
Federal Employment and Veterans Claims Research
Finding Federal Circuit decisions on government contracts, federal employment, veterans benefits, and specialized federal jurisdiction.
Court Records Access via PACER
Programmatic access to Federal Circuit case dockets, filings, and documents using the PACER Authentication API and Case Locator API.
Appellate Monitoring
Monitoring active Federal Circuit cases, oral arguments, and new opinions relevant to specific technology, trade, or legal areas.
Legal Data Analytics
Using PACER data to analyze trends in Federal Circuit patent, trade, and government contract decisions for legal research.
Integrations 3
Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.
Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.
PACER System
Federal Circuit case records fully integrated with the nationwide PACER federal court records system and CM/ECF filing system.
CourtListener
Free Law Project's CourtListener provides API access to Federal Circuit opinions and RECAP-archived PACER documents.
Justia Dockets
Justia aggregates Federal Circuit case docket information and provides public access to filings.
Resources
Every other property we hold for US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 1
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 4
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Design & Contract 2
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Access & Security 1
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 1
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Company 3
The organization behind the API
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