Wasn't it the 7th circuit that never found a patent to be valid. 3M was justifiably upset about that. 3M was justifiably upset about that. If forum shopping is bad now, think how it would be with regional circuit patent law.

I started out at the very beginning of the Federal Circuit era. I think you might be thinking of the 8th Circuit (and the District of Minnesota) as implacably hostile to patents. And yes, forum-shopping could be really bad in those days.