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Iancu v. Brunetti

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
18-302	Fed. Cir.	Apr 15, 2019 Tr.Aud.	TBD	TBD	TBD	OT 2018

Issue: Whether Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the federal registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” marks is facially invalid under the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

A trademark case with colorful language: Amy Howe and Mark Walsh talk through Iancu v. Brunetti (SCOTUStalk)
Argument analysis: Justices grapple with immoral and scandalous trademarks (Megan Carpenter)
A “view” from the courtroom: Dangling past participles (Mark Walsh)
Argument preview: Justices to consider constitutionality of banning trademark registration for immoral and scandalous marks (Megan Carpenter)
More on today’s orders (Amy Howe)
Petitions of the Week (Aurora Barnes)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Jun 29 2018	Application (18A15) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from July 11, 2018 to August 10, 2018, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Jul 05 2018	Application (18A15) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until August 10, 2018.
Jul 31 2018	Application (18A15) to extend further the time from August 10, 2018 to September 7, 2018, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Aug 01 2018	Application (18A15) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until September 7, 2018.
Sep 07 2018	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 9, 2018)
Sep 28 2018	Motion to extend the time to file a response from October 9, 2018 to November 8, 2018, submitted to The Clerk.
Oct 02 2018	Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including November 8, 2018.
Nov 08 2018	Brief of respondent Erik Brunetti filed.
Nov 28 2018	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/4/2019.
Dec 11 2018	Reply of petitioners Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office filed. (Distributed)
Jan 04 2019	Petition GRANTED.
Feb 11 2019	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Monday, April 15, 2019
Feb 15 2019	Joint appendix filed.
Feb 15 2019	Brief of petitioner Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office filed.
Feb 19 2019	Brief amicus curiae of Kurt M. Anderson filed.
Feb 19 2019	Consents for amicus brief of Kurt M. Anderson not accepted for filing. (March 04, 2019 -- Document not of the type that is to be filed electronically)
Feb 25 2019	Brief amicus curiae of The American Intellectual Property Law Association in support of neither party filed.
Feb 26 2019	Brief amicus curiae of New York Intellectual Property Law Association in support of neither party filed.
Mar 18 2019	Brief of respondent Erik Brunetti filed.
Mar 20 2019	CIRCULATED
Mar 21 2019	Record requested from the U.S.C.A. Federal Circuit.
Mar 21 2019	Brief amicus curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation filed. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2019	Brief amicus curiae of Simon Tam filed. (Distributed)
Mar 25 2019	Brief amici curiae of Professors Barton Beebe and Jeanne Fromer filed. (Distributed)
Mar 25 2019	Brief amicus curiae of The Rutherford Institute filed. (Distributed)
Mar 25 2019	Brief amici curiae of American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of the District of Columbia filed. (Distributed)
Mar 25 2019	Brief amici curiae of The Cato Institute, et. al. filed. (Distributed)
Mar 25 2019	Brief amicus curiae of International Trademark Association filed. (Distributed)
Mar 27 2019	Record from the U.S.C.A. Federal Circuit is electronic and located on Pacer.
Apr 02 2019	Reply of petitioner Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office filed. (Distributed)
Apr 15 2019	Argued. For petitioner: Malcolm L. Stewart, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. For respondent: John R. Sommer, Irvine, Cal.

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This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released orders from the April 18 conference on Monday; the justices agreed to decide Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, consolidated with Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co., Ltd., and Barton v. Barr. The justices also called for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in Putnam Investments, LLC v. Brotherston.
On Tuesday, the justices dismissed Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian as improvidently granted.
On Wednesday, the justices released their opinion in Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela.
On Monday, the justices heard oral argument in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media and Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis.
On Tuesday morning, the justices heard oral argument in Department of Commerce v. New York. On Tuesday afternoon, they heard argument in Mitchell v. Wisconsin and Rehaif v. United States.
On Wednesday, the justices heard oral argument in Quarles v. United States and Taggart v. Lorenzen.
On Friday, the justices meet for their April 26 conference; John Elwood compiles the petitions relisted for this conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela Under the Federal Arbitration Act, an ambiguous agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for concluding that the parties agreed to submit to class arbitration.
- Biestek v. Berryhill A vocational expert’s refusal to provide private market-survey data during a Social Security disability benefits hearing upon the applicant’s request does not categorically preclude the testimony from counting as “substantial evidence” in federal court under 42 U. S. C. §405(g).
- Bucklew v. Precythe Baze v. Rees and Glossip v. Gross govern all Eighth Amendment challenges alleging that a method of execution inflicts unconstitutionally cruel pain; Russell Bucklew’s as-applied challenge to Missouri’s single-drug execution protocol -- that it would cause him severe pain because of his particular medical condition -- fails to satisfy the Baze-Glossip test.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- City of Newport Beach, California v. Vos (1) Whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires law enforcement officers to provide accommodations to an armed, violent and mentally ill suspect in the course of bringing the suspect into custody; (2) whether, under the Fourth Amendment “totality of the circumstances” analysis for assessing the reasonableness of force used against a suspect who attacks law enforcement officers, a court must take into account allegedly unreasonable police conduct that took place before the use of force, but foreseeably created the need to use that force; and (3) whether, under the Fourth Amendment’s analysis for use of force, a law enforcement officer’s interest in using deadly force against a suspect threatening an officer’s life is diminished if the assailant is mentally ill.
- Dahne v. Richey Whether prison inmates have a First Amendment right to include threatening, abusive and irrelevant language in grievances.
More Petitions »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Apr. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
	1 Orders Opinions	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12 Conference	13
14	15 Orders IANCU V. BRUNETTI (18-302) EMULEX CORP. V. VARJABEDIAN (18-459)	16 PARKER DRILLING MANAGEMENT SERVICES V. NEWTON (18-389) NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE V. KAESTNER FAMILY TRUST (18-457)	17 UNITED STATES V. DAVIS (18-431) MCDONOUGH V. SMITH (18-485)	18 Conference	19	20
21	22 Orders FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE V. ARGUS LEADER MEDIA (18-481) FORT BEND COUNTY, TEXAS V. DAVIS (18-525)	23 MITCHELL V. WISCONSIN (18-6210) REHAIF V. UNITED STATES (17-9560) DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE V. NEW YORK (18-966) Opinions	24 QUARLES V. UNITED STATES (17-778) TAGGART V. LORENZEN (18-489) Opinions	25	26 Conference	27
28	29 Orders	30

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Justice Thomas at Pepperdine Law School

On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

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Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

Iancu v. Brunetti

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Featured Posts

Argument analysis: ACCA argument becomes a broader discussion of statutory interpretation – Rory Little

Practice Pointer: Digging into DIGs – Kevin Russell

Opinion analysis: The meaning of consent to class arbitration – Charlotte Garden

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Major Cases

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Conference of April 26, 2019

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Apr. 2019

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Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award