Good morning and welcome to the live blog. We will have orders from the January 18 conference in a few minutes.
Hi, everyone. I am finally here. Headed into the press office to wait for orders. Back in just a second.
The justices considered some major cases at Friday's conference, including cases involving the administration's effort to end the DACA program, a challenge to Indiana's restrictive abortion law, a gun case from New York, the transgender military ban, and whether federal employment discrimination cases apply to LBQT people.
There is one new grant today, in the New York City gun rights case NY State Rifle and Pistol v. New York.
In the transgender-in-the-military ban cases, the Supreme Court granted a stay of the district court's ruling blocking the government from enforcing the ban but denied the government's petition for cert before judgment.
The justices also granted the application to file under seal in the grand jury case that is believed to be related to the Mueller investigation.
In the transgender ban cases, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan indicated that they would have denied the stay -- that is, they would have not allowed the government to enforce the ban while the appeals are pending.
The justices denied review in the case of a high school football coach who was fired for praying on the field. Justice Alito wrote an opinion respecting the denial, which was joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
The justices also finally denied review in a pair of cases out of Oklahoma in which two death row inmates sought to reopen challenges to their sentences based on a study suggesting racial bias in the state's capital sentencing scheme. The petitions were filed in November 2017 and had been repeatedly rescheduled before finally being denied today.
Breaking news: Mark Walsh reports that the RBG documentary was nominated for best documentary in the just-released list of Oscar nominations. Finally, at least I know I have seen at least one of the movies nominated.
Just had the five-minute buzzer for opinions.
Headed in to wait for opinions . . . .
We have just one opinion for today, from Justice Thomas. It is Helsinn Healthcare v. Teva.
The decision of the Federal Circuit is affirmed, and it is unanimous.
The issue in this case is whether the sale of an invention to a third party who is contractually obligated to keep the invention confidential places the invention "on sale" within the meaning of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which bars someone from getting a patent on an invention that was on sale before the filing date.
The court holds that a sale to a third party who is required to keep the invention confidential may place the invention on sale.
This opinion barely makes it onto page 9.
By the way, this is Justice Thomas's third opinion of the term -- he already had an October and November opinion, and this was his December opinion.
Okay, I am going to get to work. Thanks so much for joining us today, and see you in February!
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