The chief justice described the legal issue in Thryv Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies LP as “small potatoes,” and with the current national lockdown, he seems even more right today than when he made the comment months ago at oral argument.
If you have become depressed about the current state of American government—the shouting, the posturing, the endless spinning—please read the oral-argument transcript in Thryv Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies LP. And for good measure, you might as well read the transcript in the immigration case
Thryv Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies LP presents an important issue concerning the extent to which the Patent and Trademark Office has unreviewable discretion to institute administrative reviews of previously issued patents.
Yesterday the Supreme Court vacated in part and reversed in part the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision in the consolidated patent cases Sandoz v. Amgen and Amgen v. Sandoz, completing the specialized circuit’s dismal 0-for-6 record in patent cases at the court this year.
In a surprise to virtually no one, the oral argument in the consolidated patent cases Sandoz v. Amgen and Amgen v. Sandoz showed the Supreme Court struggling to understand both the highly complex patent provisions in the Affordable Care Act (aka the “Obamacare” statute) and the many procedural complexities of the underlying litigation.
On the last day of scheduled oral arguments in the term, the Affordable Care Act — the always controversial “Obamacare” statute — returns yet again to the Supreme Court, although many of the justices and their clerks will probably be wishing it weren’t so.
Some Supreme Court cases have intricate facts, complex legal arguments, numerous nuances and important implications for future cases. Life Technologies v. Promega isn’t like that.
The argument in Life Technologies v. Promega seemed to go well for the petitioners, Life Technologies, who argued that the statutory phrase “all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention” cannot refer to a single component of an invention, especially if that one component is merely a common commodity that has several non-infringing uses.
A figure from the patent involved in the case.
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law at University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a law clerk to Justice Scalia during October Term 1992.
John Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law at University of Virginia School of Law. Although Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank was identified by this website and many other commentators as a major case on patent law, the Supreme Court’s unanimous resolution of the case does little to change, or even to clarify, pre-existing law.
The Lanham Act is having a very good year. Initially enacted in 1946, the Lanham Act is currently famous as the nation’s primary federal trademark statute, but the statute also confers private rights of action that allow businesses to sue each other for certain forms of unfair competition other than trademark infringement.