The patent bar was abuzz last Friday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion criticizing unnamed lawyers for violating the court’s COVID protocols for in-person oral arguments.

The court’s per curiam opinion in In re: Violation of the Revised Protocols for In-Person Arguments and Related Order said that a party had brought four individuals into the courtroom—two more than the maximum allowed when the judges were holding in-person hearings last fall. The court chastised three of the lawyers for flouting the protocols and an order the court had issued just two days earlier rejecting their request for additional attendees. But the court declined to sanction them because of the first-of-its-kind nature of the violation.