Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-28-2010
Bilski v. Kappos - 08-964 (2010) SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2009 BILSKI V. KAPPOS SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BILSKI etal. v . KAPPOS, UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR, PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal circuit No. 08964.Argued November 9, 2009Decided June 28, 2010 Petitioners patent application seeks protection for a claimed invention that explains how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy market can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The key claims are claim 1, which describes a series of steps instructing how to hedge risk, and claim 4, which places the claim 1 concept into a simple mathematical formula. The remaining claims explain how claims 1 and 4 can be applied to allow energy suppliers and consumers to minimize the risks resulting from fluctuations in market demand. The patent examiner rejected the application on the grounds that the invention is...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-07-2010
Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Limited Partnership SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2010 MICROSOFT CORP. V. I4I LTD. PARTNERSHIP SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES MICROSOFT CORP. v . i4i LIMITED PARTNERSHIP etal. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal circuit No. 10290.Argued April 18, 2011Decided June 9, 2011 In asserting patent invalidity as a defense to an infringement action, an alleged infringer must contend with 282 of the Patent Act of 1952 (Act), under which [a] patent shall be presumed valid and [t]he burden of establishing invalidity shall rest on the party asserting it. Since 1984, the Federal Circuit has read 282 to require a defendant seeking to overcome the presumption to persuade the factfinder of its invalidity defense by clear and convincing evidence. Respondents (collectively, i4i) hold the patent at issue, which claims an improved method for editing computer documents. After i4i sued petitioner Microsoft Corp. for willful infringement of that pa...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-03-2010
LORD HOPE 1. The Scottish Parliament was established by section 1 of the Scotland Act 1998. It was opened on 1 July 1999. Section 29(1) of the Act provides: "An Act of the Scottish Parliament is not law so far as any provision of the Act is outside the legislative competence of the Parliament." 2. This provision lies at the heart of the scheme of devolution to which the Act gives effect. Section 29 has to be read together with Schedule 4 which protects certain enactments from modification, and then with section 30 and Schedule 5 which defines reserved matters. These are matters reserved to the UK Parliament, and which are therefore excluded from the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. The area of competence that is identified by this group of provisions forms the basis for a series of sections that are designed to ensure that the Scottish Parliament confines itself to the defined areas of competence: section 31 (scrutiny of Bills before introduction), section 32 (the re...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Nov-30-2010
Mayo Foundation for Medical Ed. and Research v. United States - 09-837 (2010) SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2010 MAYO FOUNDATION FOR MEDICAL ED. AND RESEARCH V.UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES MAYO FOUNDATION FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH etal. v . UNITED STATES certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit No. 09837.Argued November 8, 2010Decided January 11, 2011 Petitioners (hereinafter Mayo) offer residency programs to doctors who have graduated from medical school and seek additional instruction in a chosen specialty. Those programs train doctors primarily through hands-on experience. Although residents are required to take part in formal educational activities, these doctors generally spend the bulk of their timetypically 50 to 80 hours a weekcaring for patients. Mayo pays its residents annual stipends of over $40,000 and also provides them with health insurance, malpractice insurance, and paid vacation time. The Federal Insuranc...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : May-05-2010
LORD CLARKE (with whom Lord Phillips agrees): The assumed facts 1) On 7 July 2002 the oil rig supply vessel Far Service ('the vessel') was damaged by fire while berthed in Peterhead harbour. She was owned by the pursuer, Farstad Supply AS ('the owner'), and was under charter to the third party, Asco UK Limited ('Asco'). Asco had engaged the defender Enviroco Limited ('Enviroco') to clean out some of the tanks on board the vessel. Enviroco was carrying out the work. On Asco's instructions the master of the vessel started up the engines, preparatory to moving to another berth. At the same time an employee of Enviroco inadvertently opened a valve which released oil into the engine room near hot machinery. The oil ignited and caused the fire. The claims 2) The owner sued Enviroco for damages in negligence. Enviroco denies liability but for the purposes of the appeal it is to be assumed that it is liable. Enviroco says that the fire was materially contributed to by the contributory neglige...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-30-2010
LORD PHILLIPS Introduction Private Jason Smith joined the Territorial Army in 1992, when he was 21 years old. In June 2003 he was mobilised for service in Iraq. On 26 June 2003, after a brief spell in Kuwait for purposes of acclimatisation, he arrived at Camp Abu Naji, which was to be his base in Iraq. From there he was moved to an old athletics stadium some 12 kilometres away, where about 120 men were billeted. By August temperatures in the shade were exceeding 50 degrees centigrade. On 9 August he reported sick, saying that he could not stand the heat. Over the next few days he was employed on various duties off the base. On the evening of 13 August he was found collapsed outside the door of a room at the stadium. He was rushed by ambulance to the medical centre at Camp Abu Naji but died almost immediately of hyperthermia, or heat stroke. Private Smith's body was brought back to this country and an inquest was held. The inquest suffered from procedural shortcomings. His mother comme...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : May-19-2010
LORD COLLINS: Introduction This appeal concerns a claim by a beneficiary under a will for negligence against solicitors who, he claims, allowed his brother, also a beneficiary and then the administrator of the estate, to acquire and dispose of land which should have been part of the residuary estate. The claim was begun in a personal capacity, but it is now accepted that a claim that the solicitors owed a duty of care to beneficiaries would be difficult to sustain, and the claimant seeks to amend the proceedings to claim in a representative capacity on behalf of the estate. The events of which the claimant complains happened 13 or 14 years ago. The principal questions on this appeal relate to whether this is an appropriate case for a representative (or derivative) claim, which was the focus of the judge's decision, and to the interpretation and application of section 35 of the Limitation Act 1980 and the rules of court which were enacted pursuant to it, first in the Rules of the Supr...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-28-2010
..... of sioux indians, art. vi, april 29, 1868, 15 stat. 637 ( [a]ny indian or indians receiving a patent for land under the foregoing provisions, shall thereby and from thenceforth become and be a citizen of the united states, and be entitled ..... act of 1866, 14 stat. 27, which was considered at the same time as the freedmen s bureau act, similarly sought to protect the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms.[ footnote 23 ] section 1 of the civil rights act guaranteed the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security ..... the states. but the second amendment plays a peculiar role within the bill, as announced by its peculiar opening clause.[ footnote 39 ] even accepting the heller court s view that the amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms disconnected fro ..... pattern woven into our constitutional fabric. williams v. florida , 399 u. s. 78 , 133 (1970) (harlan, j., concurring in result). nor, for that matter, did it expressly alter the bill of rights. the constitution ..... t the rights this court held protected in casey , lawrence , and other such cases fit the theory but at the cost of insulting rather than respecting the democratic process. the next constraint justice stevens suggests is harder to evaluate. he ..... others. constitutional provisions outside the bill of rights protect individual rights, see, e.g., art. i, 9, cl. 2 (granting the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ), and there is no obvious evidence that the framers of the privileges .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jan-21-2010
Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n - 08-205 (2010) SYLLABUS OCTOBER TERM, 2009 CITIZENS UNITED V. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM'N SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES CITIZENS UNITED v . FEDERAL ELECTIONCOMMISSION appeal from the united states district court for the district of columbia No. 08205.Argued March 24, 2009Reargued September 9, 2009Decided January 21, 2010 As amended by 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech that is an electioneering communication or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate. 2 U. S.C. 441b. An electioneering communication is any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that refers to a clearly identified candidate for Federal office and is made within 30 days of a primary election, 434(f)(3)(A), and that is publicly distributed, 11 CFR 100.29(a)(2), which in the case...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Oct-20-2010
Introduction When a court grants a decree of divorce, nullity of marriage or judicial separation it has the power to order ancillary relief. Ancillary relief governs the financial arrangements between the husband and the wife on the breakdown of their marriage. Sometimes the husband and wife have already made an agreement governing these matters. The agreement may have been made before the marriage ("an ante-nuptial agreement") or after the marriage ("a post-nuptial agreement"). Post-nuptial agreements may be made when the husband and wife are still together and intend to remain together, or when they are on the point of separating or have already separated. The latter type of post-nuptial agreement can be described as "a separation agreement". We shall use the generic description "nuptial agreements" to embrace both ante-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements. A court when considering the grant of ancillary relief is not obliged to give effect to nuptial agreements “ whether they ...
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