Petitions / Supreme Court Activity

Here is an update on recent activity at the Supreme Court in cases decided by the Federal Circuit.

Here are the details.

Granted Cases

There is no new activity to report.

Petition Cases

New Petitions

The Court received new petitions for writ of certiorari in three cases.

First, in Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. v. United States, Hyundai asked the Court to review the following question:

Whether the Federal Circuit erred by affirming, in conflict with the D.C. Circuit, the practice that an administrative agency may penalize the subject of an agency determination for failure to conform with a methodology, after the agency has altered that methodology and applied it retroactively in making its determination.

Second, in Sandoz Inc. v. Immunex Corp., Sandoz asked the Court to review the following question:

May the patent owner avoid the rule against double patenting by buying all of the substantial rights to a second, later-expiring patent for essentially the same invention, so long as the seller retains nominal ownership and a theoretical secondary right to sue for infringement?

Lastly, in Gadsden Industrial Park, LLC v. United States, Gadsden asked the Court to review the following two questions:

  1. “Whether this Court should fill a statutory and jurisprudential void in Tucker Act inverse condemnation ‘takings’ law to resolve the obvious constitutional dilemma that confronted the Court of Federal Claims below, where the court found that the Environmental Protection Agency took Petitioner’s property and sold some of it for $13.5 million, made no offer of compensation whatsoever, forced Petitioner to incur a decade of expense litigating against the government’s ferocious effort to avoid payment, and at trial the court found a compensable per se taking, but the court simply set aside the constitutional requirement of just compensation under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause and awarded nothing, on the basis that Petitioner’s evidence failed to prove a precise value of the property with ‘reasonable certainty’.”
  2. “Whether the Federal Circuit committed clear constitutional error where it ignored the conduct constituting the taking of Petitioner’s slag, impermissibly set aside the trial court’s fact findings underlying its conclusion that a taking of slag had occurred, and improperly substituted its own de novo findings of fact that themselves were contrary to the record, all in order to disturb the Court of Federal Claims’ determination that the government did commit a compensable taking of Petitioner’s slag and violated the Takings Clause by failing to pay for it?”