Friday round-up
on Jan 18, 2013 at 10:17 am
Thursday’s coverage of the court continued to focus on this week’s oral arguments. For this blog, Ronald Mann reports on Wednesday’s oral argument in Gunn v. Minton, in which the Court is considering whether federal jurisdiction over cases “arising under” the federal patent law extends to a claim of legal malpractice in a patent case. The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law also held a post-argument discussion, available here (video).
Briefly:
- At her On the Case blog for Reuters, Alison Frankel discusses the merits brief filed on Wednesday by the respondents in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., in which the Court will consider how the doctrine of patent exhaustion might apply to self-replicating technologies, such as Monsanto’s patented seeds. She concludes that, “[w]hatever you think about genetically modified food, this is a case to watch.”
- For this blog, Marty Lederman has the first in a series of posts about the Article III standing questions posed by the same-sex marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry (involving Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act).
- JURIST and the Montgomery Advertiser both report on the cert. petition filed on Tuesday by the Alabama Attorney General, seeking review of the Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision striking down portions ofAlabama’s immigration law on preemption grounds.
- At the Blog of Legal Times, Tony Mauro reports on the memorial service held yesterday for Frank Lorson, the former Chief Deputy Clerk of the Supreme Court, who passed away last Friday.
- At Bloomberg, Greg Stohr analyzes the dynamic between President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts in the context of other President-Chief Justice relationships in American history.
- At Dorf on Law, Eric Segall considers the two cases the Court will hear this Term implicating concerns of racial equality, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (involving the University’s use of race in undergraduate admissions decisions) and Shelby County v. Holder (involving the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act). Segall argues that “the Court is likely to reject efforts by elected and politically accountable governmental officials to further the cause of racial progress.” [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, was among the counsel to the American Association of Law Schools, which filed an amicus brief in Fisher.]
- Both ACSblog and the New York Daily News report on a new Pew poll regarding Roe v. Wade, as the decision’s fortieth anniversary approaches early next week.
