The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in two cases that are challenging the so-called Chevron deference doctrine, which says courts should defer to administrative agencies’ interpretation of the statutes delegated to them when there is an ambiguity. While the conservative justices’ questioning largely leaned in favor of scrapping the doctrine, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson pushed back on the petitioners’ arguments, predicting chaos, and the U.S. Solicitor General said overruling such a foundational doctrine would result in “endless litigation.”
In Vidal v. Elster, No. 22-704, the United States Supreme Court has heard argument and is expected to decide in the next several months whether Section 2(c) of the Lanham Act can prevent the federal registration of TRUMP TOO SMALL as a trademark for shirts and hats. Section 2(c) prohibits, inter alia, the registration of the name of a particular living individual without his consent. The issue in Elster is whether the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression transcends Section 2(c)…. To the extent that Section 2(c) survives, in whole or in part, and apart from weighty constitutional concerns which the Court is expected to resolve, there are numerous other problems lurking in this old, dark and dusty subsection—which are not particularly “small” at all—which only Congress can fix.
Relish Labs LLC and the Kroger Company (who own the “Home Chef” brand and mark) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court this week, asking the Justices to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that held Home Chef had not proven consumers were likely to confuse their marks with Grubhub and Takeaway.com’s logo.
Last term, the U.S. Supreme Court did something strange: the Court unanimously affirmed a circuit decision, which had unanimously affirmed a trial court decision. Little about the law seemed ripe for dispute or change, nevertheless, in Amgen v. Sanofi the Supreme Court spoke. Seven months later, innovators and patent practitioners are still scratching their heads. What impact, if any, does Amgen have? Is there a sign lower courts are interpreting Amgen as signaling a change in American patent law or did it merely ratify what already existed?
The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition asking the High Court to clarify patent eligibility jurisprudence under Section 101 since its 2014 ruling in Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l. Realtime Data, LLC asked the Court specifically to address the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) August 2023 decision holding 211 of its patent claims ineligible as abstract.