New order in patent case
on Nov 2, 2005 at 5:32 pm
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed, for a second time this week, to grant review of a significant patent case, doing so this time after Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., took himself out of the case. The result is that the grant remains as before, except that Roberts did not participate in the order. (The order can be found here.)
On Monday, the Court announced it would review Laboratory Corp. of America v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc. (docket 04-607), to sort out when a medical process can be patented. At that time, the Court said it would hear only the third question, dealing with a process for detecting a scientific relationship between a medical test result and a medical condition in a patient.
There was no notation that any Justice was recused. The Court, in its new order, said that the Chief Justice had advised his colleagues that he should have recused, and now did so. Without his participation, the Court then reconsidered the case, and voted anew to grant review of the same question. The Chief Justice provided no public explanation for his decision to recuse.
The case is not expected to be argued until late winter, but even if there is a new Justice by that time there is a possibility of a 4-4 split on the case.
