Petitions to Watch: Sept. 24 “Long” Conference
Continuing the popular feature from last year, SCOTUSblog will present “petitions to watch” in advance of the Justices’ private Conferences during the upcoming Term. Our list consists of the roughly 15 percent of petitions on the Court’s “paid” docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted. To view the list for the upcoming conference on Sept. 24 – which includes PDFs of all available filings in more than 60 petitions – click here.
For more on this feature and to see how our picks fared last Term, see this post from the end of OT06.
UPDATE: We have now sorted the petitions on the watch list by category (i.e. Civil Rights, Free Speech, Immigration, etc.). To view that document, click here.
Tom has not included the cert petitions in the Indiana voter identification case, 07-21 and 07-25. In a Washington Post oped yesterday, I argue for the Court to take the case, given a troubling partisan divide among lower court judges over how to balance concerns about voter fraud with concerns about voter disenfranchisement. I think that if the Justices actually read Judge Posner’s opinion for the 7th Circuit, some of them could well become interested in hearing the case.
Comment by Rick Hasen — September 20, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
Maybe any petition filed by Kirkland & Ellis relating to a Federal Circuit patent law ruling is potentially cert-worthy, but I just can’t see it for Tyco Healthcare v. Medrad, 06-1328. As I read the petition this is what happened: (1) Medrad filed for a reissue patent correcting 1 overclaim and 2 underclaim errors; however the accompanying declaration required for reissue addressed only 1 of the underclaims. (2) Tyco claimed that the reissue was invalid for the failures of the declaration, and seemingly prevailed on that claim. (3) Medrad filed for another reissue patent supported by a declaration addressing all 3 misclaims, which was granted. (4) Tyco now claims that there is no difference between the first and second reissue claims, therefore the second reissue claim does not faill within the reissue statute. But if the first reissue application was ineffective with respect to or because of the claims not supported by the declaration, how can the second reissue application not be addressing new claims? I mean, patent law is supposed to be arcane, but does it have to defy logic as well?
Comment by Roger Friedman — September 22, 2007 @ 8:39 am
If we’re just looking for cases with which to bash the Federal Circuit, here’s one coming down the line: 07-308, US v. Clintwood Elkton Mining. It should be ready for conference in October.
Comment by Roger Friedman — September 24, 2007 @ 4:55 pm