Posts in US Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruling that internet service provider Cox Communications, Inc., is not contributorily liable for its subscribers’ copyright infringement. In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Thomas, the Court held that a service provider is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only when it intended for its service to be used in that way, which is established only if the provider either encouraged the infringement or designed the service specifically to facilitate it.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted the Solicitor General’s motion for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., a case concerning induced patent infringement in the pharmaceutical skinny label context. The order followed the filing of a merits response brief by Amarin on March 20, defending the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision that found Amarin plausibly alleged that Hikma Pharmaceuticals actively induced infringement of patents covering uses of Amarin’s cardiovascular drug Vascepa.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list denying a petition for writ of certiorari filed by inventor Noah Healy to challenge rulings upholding a patent examiner’s subject matter eligibility rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Healy’s pro se petition challenged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision to affirm the examiner’s rejection as violating the meaningful review requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) due to conflicting statutory theories on patentability that were never sufficiently explained by the agency.

The latest chapter in the long-running saga of inventor Gil Hyatt is beginning to unfold. The current fight is over prosecution laches—and whether the doctrine even exists. In his last appeal to the Federal Circuit, Hyatt argued that prosecution laches is not available in Section 145 proceedings because it is inconsistent with the Patent Act of 1952, as confirmed by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014) and SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products (2017). Whether Hyatt is correct about prosecution laches being inconsistent with the 1952 Patent Act, it is clear that the Supreme Court has unequivocally ruled in both Petrella and SCA that laches simply does not exist when there is a statutorily prescribed timeframe to act.

In 2008, a medical device company I represented, Datascope Corporation, won a hard-fought victory at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That court reversed a verdict of patent infringement rendered by a federal jury in Baltimore in a suit brought by Johns Hopkins University and its licensee against my client. Johns Hopkins Univ. v. Datascope Corp., 543 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review its case against U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Chief Judge Kimberly Moore for what the NCLA dubs the “unlawful” removal of Newman from her duties on the court.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in Zioness Movement, Inc. v. The Lawfare Project, Inc., a case in which Zioness Movement sought review of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision that upheld a jury verdict allowing two competing nonprofit entities to co-own the “Zioness” trademark.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed by LED lighting developer Lynk Labs to challenge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling last January upholding the invalidation of Lynk Labs’ patent claims. The Supreme Court’s denial leaves in place the Federal Circuit’s determination that U.S. patent applications are prior art as of their filing date in inter partes review (IPR) validity proceedings conducted under the pre-America Invents Act (AIA) statute.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list including the denial of a petition for writ of certiorari filed by Dr. Stephen Thaler that challenged federal agency and court rulings preventing copyright registration for an image generated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI). In following the U.S. Solicitor General’s call to deny cert to Thaler’s appeal, the Supreme Court declined invitations from both sides of the AI authorship debate to clarify the copyrightability of works that are substantially AI-generated.

On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), affirming the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. And it means the Federal Circuit should rule in favor of Director Squires and against Volkswagen in one of the more constitutionally focused writs of mandamus challenging Squires and his use of discretion to decide institution of inter partes reviews (IPRs). And there is no need for an oral argument.

On January 23, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a petition from Stephen Thaler, who seeks copyright protection for a work created by his artificial intelligence (AI) system. The DOJ argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit correctly upheld the United States Copyright Office’s refusal to register a copyright for an image that was admittedly created without human authorship.

In 2014, the Supreme Court held that an invention is patent-ineligible if directed to “abstract ideas,” but that there was no need to define the term. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 221. Now, with the experience of more than a decade of confusing and unpredictable decision-making by lower courts trying to apply Alice, it is time for the Supreme Court to step in and provide a definition and workable test for the abstract-ideas exclusion…. The Court should grant the petition for certiorari filed by United States Automobile Association (USAA) in USAA v. PNC Bank on January 14, 2026. That will allow the Supreme Court to address the most basic of questions: What is an abstract idea?

A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling upholding the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s drug price negotiation program has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of many challenges to the Act’s constitutionality. The IRA requires drugmakers to sell selected patented drugs to the government for its Medicare Parts B & D programs at a stipulated “maximum fair price”. If they don’t agree to these prices, then they face tax penalties on sales of the drug exceeding their profits from it, or the exclusion of all their drugs from Medicare and Medicaid purchases. This would foreclose access to up to 160 million patients, accounting for around 40% of US prescription drug spending or 20% of global prescription drug spending. US government purchases are valued at $200 billion annually.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to a petition filed by patent owner Hikma Pharmaceuticals, taking up Hikma’s appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling from June 2024 finding that Amarin Pharma plausibly alleged patent infringement against Hikma’s generic omega-3 fatty acid product. The decision indicates that the nation’s highest court may be willing to overturn the Federal Circuit’s finding that Hikma’s U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) -approved skinny label induced infringement in light of Hikma’s public statements about its generic product.