June 15, 2014

What 17 cases is the Supreme Court about to deliver?

A summary.
Posted by Ann Althouse at 10:48 AM
Tags: ,

4 comments:

Tyrone Slothrop said...

The court will find that Obama overstepped his authority in making recess appointments. Taken with everything else this administration has done, a tiny, but very real disregard for the laws of the nation.

6/15/14, 11:26 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...

Oh, the grammar of it all.

6/15/14, 12:25 PM
Ann Althouse said...

The grammar is perfect.

6/15/14, 4:16 PM
Bruce Hayden said...

My vote for the most important financially is one that wasn't listed there: Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International. It involves (again) the patentability of software. As seems typical any more, I worked on an amicus brief, that we submitted this last January. Part of our argument involved the nature of software, and that the Court in their previous opinions came to wrong decisions based on their misunderstanding of this nature. And, moreover, that as a result of this, there are two mutually incompatible lines of Supreme Court cases in this area.

The reason that this could potentially be one of the biggest cases financially that they have handled in recent years, keep in mind that a lot of the biggest companies in the country are software based: e.g. Google, Apple (to some extent), Microsoft, etc. Being able to protect software with intellectual property rights (which today means with patents) is the key to start ups, and even established companies, securing funding. With companies as big as many of those at the top of the software industry willing and able to jump into new markets with their billions when shown to be viable, investors just won't invest, or at least not nearly as much, absent some guarantee that they will get their money back.

Some have estimated that almost half the patents being issued these days have a notable software component. And, hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, of GDP in this country is software based or related.

Not surprising though that this didn't make it into the author's list - patent cases are pretty technical, and likely the author didn't really understand either the question to the Court, nor its impact on the economy.

6/15/14, 11:16 PM

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