Congress created the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982 to bring greater uniformity to the country’s patent laws. Drawing on this purpose, the Federal Circuit has expanded this call for uniformity by also emphasizing the need for predictability and certainty in the law. The court thus has articulated fairly formalistic approaches to a number of issues. However, the Federal Circuit increasingly has articulated rules of law to promote certainty, at the expense of fairness. The root of this bias likely derives from the court’s Congressional mandate to promote uniformity and certainty in patent law. This rules-based approach, however, is not without critics. This Essay posits that not all of the blame should fall on the Federal Circuit’s shoulders. The Supreme Court has expressly encouraged this approach in its recent patent jurisprudence. This essay will first identify the various ways in which the Federal Circuit has opted for the “certainty” side of the Fair Protection-Certainty Conundrum. Next, the Essay surveys recent Supreme Court cases which show that the Supreme Court has enabled this shift, making the Court complicit in the Federal Circuit’s formalism agenda.