Neil McGill Gorsuch is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since April 10, 2017.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative law body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which decides issues of patentability. It was formed on September 16, 2012, as one part of the America Invents Act. Prior to its formation, the main judicial body in the USPTO was the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).
In United States patent law, an inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure for challenging the validity of a United States patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Versata Development Group, Inc. v. SAP America, Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, is a July 2015 decision of the Federal Circuit affirming the final order of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the recently created adjudicatory arm of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), invalidating as patent ineligible the claims in issue of Versata's U.S. Patent No. 6,553,350. This was the first case in the Federal Circuit reviewing a final order in a Covered Business Method (CBM) invalidation proceeding under the America Invents Act (AIA). The case set an important precedent by deciding several unsettled issues in the interpretation of the CBM provisions of the AIA>, including what are business-method patents under the AIA and whether the AIA authorizes the PTO to hold such patents invalid in CBM proceedings on the ground that they are patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as "abstract ideas."
Fisher v. University of Texas, 579 U.S. 365 (2016), also known as Fisher II, is a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit correctly found that the University of Texas at Austin's undergraduate admissions policy survived strict scrutiny, in accordance with Fisher v. University of Texas (2013), which ruled that strict scrutiny should be applied to determine the constitutionality of the University's race-conscious admissions policy.
Nelson v. Colorado, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 7-1 decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that a state had no right to keep fines and other money based on an invalid conviction. Justice Samuel Alito wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion, and Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on how two federal laws, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), relate to whether employment contracts can legally bar employees from collective arbitration. The Supreme Court had consolidated three cases, Epic Systems Corp. v Lewis, Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris (16-300), and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc. (16-307). In a 5–4 decision issued in May 2018, the Court ruled that arbitration agreements requiring individual arbitration and prohibiting class action lawsuits are enforceable under the FAA, regardless of allowances set out within the NLRA.
Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, 591 U.S. 1 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held by a 5–4 vote that a 2017 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) order to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and reversed the order.
TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the venue in patent infringement lawsuits.
Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. 148 (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies" for immigration purposes, is unconstitutionally vague. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) classifies some categories of crimes as "aggravated felonies", and immigrants convicted of those crimes, including those legally present in the United States, are almost certain to be deported. Those categories include "crimes of violence", which are defined by the "elements clause" and the "residual clause". The Court struck down the "residual clause", which classified every felony that, "by its nature, involves a substantial risk" of "physical force against the person or property" as an aggravated felony.
Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the inter partes review process granted by Congress to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for challenging the validity of patents, rather than a jury trial, is constitutional and did not violate either Article III of the Constitution nor the Seventh Amendment.
SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the United States Patent and Trademark Office, when conducting an inter partes review, must make judgement on all patent claims contested by the petitioner.
Patchak v. Zinke, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act, which precludes federal courts from hearing lawsuits involving a particular parcel of land. Although six Justices agreed that the Gun Lake Act was constitutional, they could not agree on why. In an opinion issued by Justice Thomas, a plurality of the Court read the statute to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over cases involving the property and held that this did not violate Article Three of the United States Constitution. In contrast, Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, both of whom concurred in the judgment, upheld the Act as a restoration of the government's sovereign immunity. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for himself and Justices Kennedy and Gorsuch, dissented on the ground that the statute intruded on the judicial power, in violation of Article III.
Peter v. NantKwest Inc., 589 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2019 term.
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464 (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private schools cannot discriminate against religious schools under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.
Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2120 (2014), was a 2014 decision by the United States Supreme Court pertaining to the interpretation of patent claims in U.S. patents. The opinion addressed the requirement contained in 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 2 that a patent be "particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as the invention." Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that a patent fails to comply with this requirement when the patent's claims, read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, "fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention." Subsequent to the Court’s decision the case was remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which, using the new standard, declined to invalidate Biosig's patent.
United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution as it related to patent judges on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In a complex decision, the Court ruled that these judges were considered "principal officers" under the Appointments Clause, normally subject to appointment through the US President and the US Senate, but to remedy the matter, the Court ruled that the constitutional issue is resolved by allowing the PTAB decisions to be subject to review by the appropriately-appointed Director of the Patent Office.
PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the sovereign immunity of states to delegated powers of eminent domain granted to private companies from federal agencies, in the specific case, acquiring property for the right-of-way to build a natural gas pipeline. The Court, in a 5–4 decision issued in June 2021, ruled that states, by nature of ratifying the Constitution, gave up their ability to exercise sovereign immunity from the federal government or from those parties whom they have delegated that authority.
Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 1920 (2015), was a 2015 decision by the United States Supreme Court pertaining to the standard for induced patent infringement. Writing for a 6-2 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy held that (1) a claim of induced infringement requires a showing that the defendant knew that it is engaging in infringing conduct and (2) a defendant's belief that a patent is invalid is not a defense to a claim of induced infringement. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from the second point, arguing that, in his view, a good faith belief in a patent's invalidity should constitute a defense to a charge of induced infringement.
Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1 (2023), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that rejected the independent state legislature theory (ISL), a theory that asserts state legislatures have sole authority to establish election laws for federal elections within their respective states without judicial review by state courts, without presentment to state governors, and without constraint by state constitutions. The case arose from the redistricting of North Carolina's districts by its legislature after the 2020 United States census, which the state courts found to be too artificial and partisan, and an extreme case of gerrymandering in favor of the Republican Party.
