Tuesday round-up

By Nabiha Syed
on Jul 19, 2011 at 9:18 am

While reflections on the Court continue to roll in, other commentators speculate on the future of other pending cases.

At PrawfsBlawg, Tun-Jen Jiang “push[es] back” on assertions that the Federal Circuit had a “good” Term at the Court, arguing that although the Court no longer “refers to the Federal Circuit’s jurisprudence as ‘gobbledygook,’” “to say that the Federal Circuit has had a good term because of this is only saying that it had no place to go but up.” Writing at IPWatchdog, patent attorney Gene Quinn examines the “practical effect” of the Court’s 2010 decision in Bilski v. Kappos, holding that the “machine or transformation” test is not the only way to determine whether an invention is patentable subject matter.”  He concludes that “what has transpired since the Supreme Court’s decision . . . is not much different, if at all different, than what happened day-to-day prior to the decision.”

Other coverage of the Court focuses on petitions pending before the Court. At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger reports on a petition for certiorari challenging Arizona’s switch from thiopental to pentobarbital for lethal injections; the Associated Press (via the Arizona Star) provides more background on the case. Courthouse News Service reports on the filing of an amicus brief in support of certiorari in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the Second Circuit held that the Alien Tort Statute applies only to claims against individuals

Finally, SCOTUSblog’s online symposium on S.B. 1070 and Arizona v. United States continues this week.  Yesterday, Richard Samp and Lauren Gilbert responded to last week’s posts.