FTC Again Urging Justices To Hear Drug-Patent Case
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It is unusual to see an intra-governmental dispute about a case before the Supreme Court, but it has become an annual event for the Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Justice Department.
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A disparate group made up of dozens of state attorneys general, labor unions, retailers, professional sports leagues and others urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to hear a claim brought by the recording and film industries against two Internet file-sharing firms.
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The Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a case on whether judges can consider the alleged unfairness of a federal law regarding sentences for selling crack and powder cocaine when deciding on jail time for such crimes.
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The Justice Department asked the US Supreme Court Tuesday to hear argument on whether federal anti-drug law can trump Oregon&#39;s assisted suicide law.
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By byron kho. A consortium of movie and record companies joined forces on Friday to request that the US Supreme Court take another look at peer-to-peer file-sharing programs.
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A former high court judge suggests judges hearing difficult legal cases could call for a second opinion.
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School districts in three states and the nation's largest teachers union asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to revive a lawsuit challenging the way government-mandated programs are funded.
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Group is asking the Supreme Court to overturn decision in favor of file-swapping networks.
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As the Supreme Court prepares to examine the issue, the arguments have again turned to the role of the federal courts.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it harder to obtain patents, with technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. supporting a change. The case, involving a patent on gas pedals for vehicles, has the Supreme Court examining how lower courts arrive at a decision that an invention was obvious, and therefore not patentable. In the case, Teleflex Inc. and Technology Holding Co., holders of the electronic gas pedal patent, sued KSR International Co. for patent infringement, but the defendant argued the courts should invalidate the gas pedal invention for obviousness. After oral arguments Tuesday, some patent lawyers said they expected the Supreme Court to overturn a 4-decade-old approach to deciding obviousness often called the teaching-suggestion-motivation test. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used this test, saying that there must be some proven teaching, suggestion or motivation to lead a person of ordinary skill to combine "prior art" products into a new invention for that invention to be declared obvious. Other patent lawyers said they expect little movement from the Supreme Court, although any change would have a huge impact on patent holders. If the Supreme Court throws out the motivation test, all current patents could be suspect, said Paul Andre, an intellectual property lawyer with Perkins Coie LLP, in an interview. A change in the motivation test could mean fewer patent infringement cases brought by patent holders, because they would fear that courts would rule their patents invalid, he said. "The alleged infringer would have an easier time challenging a patent," he added. But most patent lawyers seem to believe the Supreme Court won't change the law, with the court last acting on the obvious standard in a 1966 ruling, he said. "If the Supreme Court wanted to do it, they'd have changed it by now," he said. But justices asked several questions about the obviousness standard, with Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting courts needed more flexibility to determine obviousness. The court will likely require the Federal Circuit to come up with a new standard, said Sharon Barner, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP, in an interview apart from the court hearing. Cisco and Microsoft, joined by three other companies, filed a brief in the case saying the motivation standard makes it too hard to prove obviousness, leading to bad patents. Microsoft and Cisco have been sued for "allegedly infringing dozens of questionable patents," wrote their attorney Peter Sullivan, of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed LLP. The motivation test "establishes too lenient a standard for patentability, and it has had a stifling effect on true innovation because it encumbers ideas well beyond the limits imposed by Congress for patentable inventions," Sullivan wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court. But a group of patent lawyers filed a brief opposing a change in the law, saying a change in the obviousness standard could make it difficult to get a patent on any invention that combines old products. The current standard is established and well-thought, wrote lawyers for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Without the motivation test, there's no standard to determine obviousness, said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, in an interview. "Things are often obvious in hindsight when they weren't that obvious," he said. "Big un-innovative ... are trying to make the invention game a king's sport because they hate having to compensate inventors."
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Early this morning, The New York Times reported that the US Federal Trade Commission would be expanding its otherwise normal investigation into the prospective merger deal between contextual advertising giant Google and display advertising giant DoubleClick, by issuing Google a "second request" for more information late last week.  Analysts are saying the FTC may be acting on the behest of none other than Microsoft.
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The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision upholding the Federal Trade Commission&#39;s imposition of a national do not call registry.
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eBay has asked an appeals court for a new trial over claims that its online auction house infringes patents held by Virginia-based MercExchange.
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The US Supreme Court ordered on Monday further consideration of a challenge by Democrats and minority groups to a controversial Republican-backed congressional redistricting plan in Texas.
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear appeals in two cases concerning the right of the entertainment industry to subpoena file-traders and whether telecommunication companies have to share their networks with startup competitors.ADVERTISEMENTSBC Case Study: Crate & BarrelWhat sold them on improving their network? A system that could cut management costs from the get-go. Find out more.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Representatives for the music and movie industries have filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision in which companies that enable peer-to-peer (P-to-P) file trading networks were absolved of liability for copyright violations by users of those networks.
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The Supreme Court is meeting to announce new cases it will decide and hear oral arguments.