It is interesting to note that there has been a significant downturn in the number of visiting judges at the Federal Circuit since Chief Judge Michel retired. My sense is that even more so than the “Rader” court, the “Prost” court has had fewer visiting judges than the “Michel” court. During the visit to Chicago this week, no Seventh Circuit or N.D. of Illinois judges sat with the Federal Circuit to hear oral arguments.
That being said, I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing. On more than one occasion I have looked up questionable precedent of the Federal Circuit or CCPA and chalked up the odd ruling to the fact that it was a split decision with a visiting judge making up part of the majority.