Larry Golden v. United States

25-2128Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit10 mar 2026

Testo completo

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
LARRY GOLDEN,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2025-2128
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:25-cv-01019-EGB, Senior Judge Eric G. Bruggink.
______________________
Decided: March 10, 2026
______________________
L ARRY G OLDEN, Greenville, SC, pro se.
G RANT D REWS J OHNSON, Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by S COTT D AVID B OLDEN, C ONRAD J OSEPH D EWITTE,
J R., BRETT SHUMATE.
______________________
Before D YK, SCHALL , and P ROST , Circuit Judges.
Case: 25-2128 Document: 32 Page: 1 Filed: 03/10/2026

-- 1 of 5 --

GOLDEN v. US 2
P ER CURIAM .
Larry Golden appeals a decision of the U.S. Court of
Federal Claims dismissing his complaint and denying his
motion for disqualification. Golden v. United States, No.
25-1019C, 2025 WL 2542073 (Fed. Cl. Sep. 4, 2025) (“Or-
der”). For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
This is Mr. Golden’s fifth appeal to this court regarding
similar facts. Mr. Golden previously filed four suits at the
Court of Federal Claims alleging generally that the
“United States, through the Department of Homeland Se-
curity, has caused cell phone manufacturers to produce de-
vices that infringe on one or more of his patents.” Order,
2025 WL 2542073, at *1. Mr. Golden was unsuccessful in
his prior suits. Our most recent decision affirmed the
Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal based on claim preclu-
sion and affirmed the denial of Mr. Golden’s motion to dis-
qualify the Court of Federal Claims judge overseeing his
case. See Golden v. United States, No. 24-2256, 2025 WL
900873 (Fed. Cir. May 24, 2025).
Mr. Golden brought the present suit against the United
States in June 2025 asserting two claims: (1) “the United
States has taken [his] intellectual property without com-
pensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the
United States Constitution” and (2) “the United States has
violated his patent rights.” Order, 2025 WL 2542073,
at *1; see S.A. 1310–11.1 The Court of Federal Claims
noted that “there is substantial overlap between the pa-
tents relied on [in] this action and those litigated previ-
ously. . . . The same products and government initiatives
1 “S.A.” refers to the supplemental appendix in-
cluded with the government’s informal brief.
Case: 25-2128 Document: 32 Page: 2 Filed: 03/10/2026

-- 2 of 5 --

GOLDEN v. US 3
feature in all five complaints.” Order, 2025 WL 2542073,
at *1.
Mr. Golden filed a motion for disqualification, seeking
recusal of the Court of Federal Claims judge. Id.
Mr. Golden argued that the judge’s prior rulings favoring
the United States are proof of bias against Mr. Golden. The
Court of Federal Claims denied his motion, finding no
ground for recusal and noting that a similar denial of
recusal was affirmed on appeal. Id.
The government moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdic-
tion and failure to state a claim. Id. at *2. Regarding lack
of jurisdiction, the government argued that (1) “patent in-
fringement cannot be brought as a taking claim under [the
Court of Federal Claims’] Tucker Act jurisdiction” and
(2) the entire complaint was untimely “due to the operation
of the six-year limitations period” in 28 U.S.C. § 2501. Id.
Regarding the failure to state a claim, the government ar-
gued that everything in the complaint was previously liti-
gated to finality in four decisions of the Court of Federal
Claims that were all affirmed on appeal. Id.
The Court of Federal Claims granted the government’s
motion to dismiss. Because the government’s alleged in-
fringing conduct referenced in the complaint took place be-
tween 2003 and 2017, the court dismissed the entire
complaint as untimely, due to the six-year limitations pe-
riod, and thus “beyond [the court’s] jurisdiction.” Id.; see,
e.g., S.A. 1310. The court also determined that it had no
jurisdiction [over] Mr. Golden’s “recharacterized claims”
and that “[h]is rights, if any, are under § 1498.” Id. Alter-
natively, the court dismissed the complaint under Court of
Federal Claims Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim due
to claim preclusion because everything in the complaint
was “previously litigated to finality in four decisions of
[the] court, all of which were affirmed on appeal.” Id.
Mr. Golden timely appealed. We have jurisdiction un-
der 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
Case: 25-2128 Document: 32 Page: 3 Filed: 03/10/2026

-- 3 of 5 --

GOLDEN v. US 4
D ISCUSSION
We review de novo a decision of the Court of Federal
Claims dismissing a complaint for failure to state a claim
under Rule 12(b)(6). Kam-Almaz v. United States, 682 F.3d
1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2012). “We also review de novo the
grant or denial of a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdic-
tion.” Id. We review a denial of a motion to disqualify for
abuse of discretion. See Shell Oil Co. v. United States, 672
F.3d 1283, 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
On appeal, Mr. Golden challenges the dismissal of his
complaint and the denial of his motion to disqualify the
Court of Federal Claims judge presiding over his case.
We agree with the Court of Federal Claims’ decision
dismissing Mr. Golden’s complaint for two main reasons.
First, the Court of Federal Claims correctly found that
Mr. Golden’s allegations are outside the six-year limita-
tions period. “Every civil action against the United States
is barred unless the complaint is filed within six years of
the time a right of action first accrues.” FloorPro, Inc. v.
United States, 680 F.3d 1377, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (citing
28 U.S.C. § 2501). As the Court of Federal Claims found,
Mr. Golden filed his complaint in 2025 but his allegations
in the complaint about the government’s activities occurred
prior to the six-year mark of 2019. See Order, 2025
WL 2542073, at *2; see, e.g., S.A. 1530–31.
Second, the Court of Federal Claims correctly deter-
mined that it does not have jurisdiction over Mr. Golden’s
patent-infringement-based takings claim. As we explained
to Mr. Golden in his previous appeal, “a cause of action un-
der the Fifth Amendment is unavailable to patent owners
alleging infringement by the government.” Golden
v. United States, 955 F.3d 981, 987 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (citing
Schillinger v. United States, 155 U.S. 163, 168–69 (1894)).
We stated in our previous decision that “28 U.S.C. § 1498
provides the only avenue for a patent owner to bring an
action against the government for patent infringement.”
Case: 25-2128 Document: 32 Page: 4 Filed: 03/10/2026

-- 4 of 5 --

GOLDEN v. US 5
Id. We concluded that the Court of Federal Claims “does
not have jurisdiction to hear takings claims based on al-
leged patent infringement by the government.” Id. at 988.
Thus, the Court of Federal Claims properly dismissed Mr.
Golden’s patent-infringement-based claims.2
We also agree with the Court of Federal Claims’ deci-
sion denying Mr. Golden’s motion to disqualify. As we ex-
plained in our most recent decision where he made a
similar assertion, “to the extent that Mr. Golden thinks
that past adverse rulings by the [Court of Federal Claims]
evinces bias, we have previously observed that ‘judicial rul-
ings almost never constitute a valid basis for a bias or par-
tiality motion.’” Golden, 2025 WL 900873, at *3 (quoting
Micro Chem., Inc. v. Lextron, Inc., 318 F.3d 1119, 1126
(Fed. Cir. 2003)). Thus, the Court of Federal Claims did
not abuse its discretion in denying Mr. Golden’s motion to
disqualify.
Accordingly, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ de-
cision dismissing Mr. Golden’s complaint and denying his
motion to disqualify.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Golden’s remaining argu-
ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
sons, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
2 Given our ruling, we need not reach the Court of
Federal Claims’ alternative ruling dismissing the com-
plaint under Rule 12(b)(6). See Order, 2025 WL 2542073,
at *2.
Case: 25-2128 Document: 32 Page: 5 Filed: 03/10/2026

-- 5 of 5 --

Continua la tua ricerca in ChatGPT o Claude

Collega Omnilex per cercare nel corpus legale dal tuo assistente IA.