No new grants, but Court interested in patent case
on Apr 24, 2006 at 10:02 am
The Supreme Court on Monday did not grant any new cases for review. But, in a major test case on the application of U.S. patent laws to the digital world, the Court asked the U.S. Solicitor General to express his views on Microsoft v. AT&T Corp. (05-1056). The issue is whether software code is the kind of tangible creation that can be treated under patent law as a component of a patented invention, and, if so, whether foreign copying of code for foreign-made computers is an infringement. (Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., is recused in the case.) The orders list can be found here.
There was one summary order. In Salinas v. U.S. (05-8400), the Court ordered the Fifth Circuit Court to take a new look at a case on simple possession of an illegal drug. The Fifth Circuit had ruled that a prior conviction for simple possession amounted to a “controlled substance offense” for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines. The Court acted after the Solicitor General conceded that the Fifth Circuit had erred. The Court’s brief, unsigned opinion said that that category is reserved for drug crimes involving the intent to make or distribute an illegal drug, not simple possession..
In the Microsoft case, the software giant told the Court that the Federal Circuit Court had embarked on a campaign to stretch U.S. patent laws to reach international commerce in sofware, even though the traditional understanding has been that U.S. patent laws do not reach abroad. Microsoft’s cert petition can be found here. The Federal Circuit decision Microsoft is challenging in its new appeal can be found here. That ruling partly built upon an earlier Federal Circuit ruling, in Eolas Technologies v. Microsoft, found here.
The particular issue in the case is, if code can be treated as a part of a patented invention, whether U.S. patent law forbids foreign computer makers from making copies of it for installation in foreign-made computers. At issue is Microsoft’s most significant software creation, the code for its Windows operating system. AT&T contended that computers running the Windows operating system infringe on a patent that AT&T holds on a so-called “digital speech coder system.”
Microsoft has stipulated that computers running Windows infringe on the AT&T patent, but only on computers built or sold in the U.S. AT&T went further, demanding damages for every Windows-running computer made outside the U.S., based on the theory that the code is a component of the AT&T patented system and that copying by a foreign company from a software master disk constitutes the infringement. The Federal Circuit found the claimed infringement.
The Solicitor General is not expected to respond to the invitation for his views for several months. Thus, the case will go over to the new Term starting in October.
The Court denied review of most of the key cases it had examined at its Conference last Friday. But among the new cases, it took no action Monday on two appeals testing whether the Court’s views allowing limited use of race in higher education admissions practices extends to student assignment policies in the public schools. The orders list showed no action on appeals from Seattle, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (05-908) and from Louisville, Ky., Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (05-915). The Court will consider both cases again at its Conference on Friday, according to the Court’s electronic docket.
In another public school case, the Court refused to hear an appeal by a school disrict in the small town of Baldwinsville, N.Y., near Syracuse, challenging a Second Circuit ruling that public school officials may act unconstitutionally in censoring what students say or otherwise express in school-sponsored activities, such as classroom assignments. The case involves a boy in kindergarten who, on an assignment to make a poster about saving the environment, included a figure of Jesus in his display. School officials bent under that portion of the poster when it was put up in the school cafeteria. The case, as it reached the Supreme Court, was not final, because the Circuit Court had ordered further proceedings in District Court. The case was Baldwinsville School District v. Peck (05-899).
The Court turned aside an appeal by the state of Minnesota, seeking to test whether the Court’s 2004 decision in Blakely v. Washington restricts judges’ powere to impose longer criminal sentences based on judge-made findings of fact about the crime, but not facts about the perpetrator. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled last November that it is unconstitutional for a judge to add to a criminal sentence based on a finding — by the judge, not the jury — that the convicted man was not amenable to probation. The case was Minnesota v. Allen (05-1078).
The Court also declined to hear two appeals on an issue involving the basis for calculating good-time credits for prisoners serving federal sentences. The issue is whether the phrase “term of imprisonment” in federal sentencing law means”sentence imposed” or “time served.” The Justice Department takes the view that good-time credits are to be based on “time served,” and ten Circuit Courts have either accepted that view on their own or deferred to the government’s view. The Court made no comment as it denied review in Moreland v. Federal Bureau of Prisons (05-8268) and O’Donald v. Johns (05-8504), but Justice John Paul Stevens filed an opinion discussing the issue. He said that the difference in interpretation can add about a week each year to federal prisoners’ sentences. Stevens, while conceding the unanimity in the Circuit Courts on the point, said that the text and history of the statute suggested it was not meant to change the pre-existing view that good-time credits are to be based on sentence imposed. He wrote separately, he said, to stress that the Court’s denial of review did not rule on the issue “and certainly does not represent an expression of any opinion concerning the wisdom of the government’s position.” Stevens also suggested that Congress may want to revisit the issue. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., was recused from the O’Donald case, which came from his former Third Circuit. He gave no reason.
