Good morning, everyone! Welcome to our live blog. It's a relatively busy day at the Court today, because the justices are hearing oral arguments in (among others) the big Texas redistricting cases. But on the other hand, it's the calm before tomorrow's travel ban storm.
As is normally the case, we don't know which cases we are getting today. The smart money in the courtroom (which, as far as I know, is based just on speculation) is that we could get the opinion in Epic Systems, the arbitration case. It was argued on the first day.
There are still three opinions outstanding from October: Epic Systems, Gill v. Whitford, and Jesner v. Arab Bank (Alien Tort Statute).
If the assumption is that Kennedy is writing Gill v. Whitford, then the Chief Justice and Gorsuch are sharing Epic and Jesner. If so, the corporations should be optimistic.
Lydia Wheeler of The Hill reports two boxes today.
For those of you who might be new around here, the number of boxes is a rough proxy for the number of opinions that we might get. It's a topic of conversation for the roughly five minutes (and the five-minute buzzer just sounded here in the press room), at which point they actually start to hand out the opinions and it becomes a moot point.
Okay, headed in to wait for opinions. Talk to you soon.
WE have the first decision and it is Oil States v. Greene's. By Thomas.
The Court holds that inter partes review does not violate Article III of the Constitution or the 7th Amendment.
The decision of the Federal Circuit is affirmed.
It appears to be 7-2; Gorsuch dissents, joined by the Chief Justice. Breyer had a concurring opinion joined by Sotomayor and Ginsburg.
There will be more, but not from any of the justices junior to Thomas. So we are only likely to hear from Thomas again, Kennedy or the Chief. Interesting!
Had the Court come out the other way in Oil States, that would have been a major disruption in patent practice. This basically just maintains the status quo.
Thomas's opinion is 17 pages.
Breyer has a one paragraph opinion. "But the Court's opinion should not be read to say that matters involving private rights may never be adjudicated other than by Article III courts, say, sometimes by agencies."
Never mind about opinion authors. Gorsuch has the opinion in SAS Institute v. Iancu -- the thinking in the press room is that it wouldn't make sense unless they did Oil States first.
The decision of the Federal Circuit is reversed and remanded. The Court holds that, when the patent office institutes an inter partes review, it must decide the patentability of all of the claims the petitioner has challenged.
This is 5-4; Gorsuch joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito. Ginsburg has dissenting opinion joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan; Breyer has a dissenting opinion joined by Ginsburg and Sotomayor in full and Kagan for most of it.
To elaborate on my earlier comment, the decision in this case (SAS Institute) wouldn't make sense until the Court announced (or alternatively would give away the result in) the Oil States case, involving whether inter partes review is constitutional.
We have at least one more; heading in
We have the opinion in Jesner, and it's by Kennedy. I am all kinds of off today.
It is, as one of my colleagues says, a novel.
Kennedy writing Jesner suggests he is NOT writing Gill -- either the Chief or (less likely) Gorsuch is.
From the syllabus: "The Court holds that foreign corporations may not be defendants in suits brought under" the Alien Tort Statute.
This was a lawsuit brought by victims of terrorism against the Arab Bank, alleging that the bank had helped to finance attacks and maintain bank accounts for terrorists.
There are multiple parts to the opinions, and the court is splintered.
I am headed upstairs for oral arguments now. I will have more on Jesner later today. Thanks, all!
There have been a few comments suggesting that Chevron battles arose in the separate writings in the two patent cases this morning. Haven't had a chance to look at them yet myself...
Hi all, that's all for us today -- thanks so much for joining us!
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