Petitions of the week

This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that involve, among other things, what tolling rule applies in a class action filed in federal court based on diversity jurisdiction; whether, by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to grant expedited review and approval of labels for generic pesticides that are “identical or substantially similar” to the previously approved labels for the same product, Congress intended to preclude claims of copyright infringement with respect to generic pesticide labels; and whether Pittsburgh’s ordinance establishing a buffer zone outside abortion clinics violates the free speech clause.

The petitions of the week are below the jump:

Living Essentials, LLC v. Washington
19-988
Issue: Whether the prior-substantiation doctrine—which makes a commercial speaker liable if it lacks adequate “substantiation” for its factual claims before making them in an advertisement, even if the speech is never proven to be false—violates the First Amendment.

Chrimar Systems Inc. v. Ale USA Inc.
19-1124
Issues: (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may apply a finality standard for patent cases that conflicts with the standard applied by the Supreme Court and all other circuit courts in non-patent cases; and (2) whether a final judgment of liability and damages that has been affirmed on appeal may be reversed based on the decision of an administrative agency, merely because an appeal having nothing to do with liability, damages or the proper calculation of the ongoing royalty rate is pending.

Willowood, LLC v. Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC
19-1147
Issues: (1) Whether liability for patent infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(g) requires that all steps of a patented process must be practiced by, or at least attributable to, a single entity, a requirement that the Supreme Court previously recognized is a prerequisite for infringement under 35 U.S.C. §§ 271(a) and (b) in Limelight Networks Inc. v. Akamai Technologies Inc.; and (2) whether, by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to grant expedited review and approval of labels for generic pesticides that are “identical or substantially similar” to the previously approved labels for the same product, Congress intended to preclude claims of copyright infringement with respect to generic pesticide labels.

Weatherly v. Pershing, L.L.C.
19-1157
Issues: (1) Whether in a class action filed in federal court based on diversity jurisdiction, the tolling rule of American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah applies, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has held, or whether state tolling law applies as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in this case and as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 9th Circuits have held; and (2) whether, if federal tolling applies, tolling occurs when a plaintiff brings an individual action before the district court has ruled on the class certification question, as the 2nd, 9th and 10th Circuits have ruled, or whether tolling does not apply as the 1st and 6th Circuits have ruled.

Bruni v. City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
19-1184
Issues: (1) Whether federal courts have authority to save a state or local law from unconstitutionality by positing a limiting construction that has no state-law basis and contradicts governing authorities’ understanding of their own law; and (2) whether Pittsburgh’s buffer-zone ordinance violates the free speech clause.