Randall Ray Rader
Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Randall Ray Rader (born April 21, 1949) is a former United States Circuit Judge and former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Early life, education, and career
Born in Hastings, Nebraska, Rader received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University in 1974 and a Juris Doctor from the George Washington University Law School in 1978. Rader served in staff positions on the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1980, first as a legislative assistant to United States Representative Virginia D. Smith from 1975 to 1978, then as counsel to United States Representative Philip Crane, and legislative director of the United States House Committee on Ways and Means from 1978 to 1981. He then served as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1980 to 1988. While counsel to the Judiciary Committee, he was Chief Counsel or Minority Chief Counsel for the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights.
Federal judicial service
President Ronald Reagan appointed Rader to the United States Court of Federal Claims in 1988, to succeed Robert M. M. Seto. The United States Senate confirmed the nomination by unanimous consent on August 11, 1988. On June 12, 1990, Rader was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated by Judge Jean Galloway Bissell. Rader was confirmed by the Senate on August 3, 1990, and received his commission on August 9, 1990.
While on the Federal Circuit, Rader has served as a law professor, having taught patent law and advanced intellectual property courses at the University of Virginia School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, and the George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C. Rader is co-author of a casebook on patent law used at over sixty-five law schools.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7291594. VIAF identifies the subject as 67802278. The Library of Congress control number is n82021843. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1974, 1978 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Randall Ray Rader” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.