Friday round-up
on Feb 15, 2013 at 10:50 am
Thursday’s coverage of the Court primarily looked ahead to the cases slated for argument over the next two weeks, with Shelby County v. Holder, the challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, receiving the most attention. At Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports on the recent history of voting rights in Shelby County and surrounding areas of Alabama. This blog also continued its online symposium on Shelby County, with contributions from Spencer Overton and Ilya Shapiro. ACSblog reports on a recent discussion on the Voting Rights Act and Shelby County at the University of Baltimore School of Law, featuring (among others) Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
Other coverage looked to next week’s oral argument in Bowman v. Monsanto, in which the Court is considering the application of the doctrine of patent exhaustion to self-replicating technologies. Reuters previews the case, emphasizing the potential stakes involved, while its News & Insight blog discusses the case in the context of the increasing number of intellectual property cases at the Court. At Forbes, Robert Atkinson emphasizes the relationship between the case and the primary purpose of the patent system — to provide an incentive for innovation, and he urges the Court to “take care that the essential fuel of interest that patents ultimately protect is not extinguished.” And at USA Today, Tony Mauro generally looks ahead at the cases scheduled for oral argument later this Term.
Briefly:
- Part Four of this blog’s interview with Linda Greenhouse, in which she considers the utility of the “liberal” and “conservative” categories often applied to the Court, is now available.
- At Concurring Opinions, Kaimipono Wenger discusses Justice Ginsburg’s speech last week at Thomas Jefferson Law School. In addition to speaking about her time at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, Justice Ginsburg also stressed the need for women on the bench, “emphasizing that women judges bring perspective that the court otherwise lacks.”
- At the Volokh Conspiracy, Sasha Volokh looks ahead to the Court’s opinion in FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System, in which the Court is currently considering the application of federal antitrust laws to state governments, after last November’s oral argument.
