Here is an update on recent activity at the Supreme Court in cases decided by the Federal Circuit. With respect to granted cases, there is no new activity to report. With respect to petitions, one new petition was filed in a patent case raising questions related to eligibility and the Federal Circuit’s use of summary affirmances. The Court also received waivers of the right to respond in another patent case and a pro se case, as well as a brief in opposition in a trade case. Here are the details.
Granted Cases
There is no new activity to report.
Petition Cases
New Petition
In Audio Evolution Diagnostics, Inc. v. United States, a patent case, Audio Evolution Diagnostics asked the Court to review the following questions:
- “Whether this Court should clarify its Alice and Mayo rulings at steps one and two by focusing on the language of 35 U.S.C. § 101 itself and differentiate patent-eligibility determinations under § 101 from fact-based well-understood, routine, and conventional questions of novelty, obviousness, and enablement under §§ 102, 103, and 112.”
- “Whether this Court should find that the Federal Circuit is abandoning its role of articulating patent law precedent and bringing uniformity to patent law with its overuse of Federal Circuit Rule 36 to summarily affirm decisions of lower tribunals involving unsettled and complex issues of patent law.”
Waivers of the Right to Respond
Waivers of the right to respond were filed in two cases:
- DISH Network L.L.C. v. Dragon Intellectual Property, LLC (patent)
- Arunachalam v. International Business Machines Corp. (pro se)
Brief in Opposition
A brief in opposition to a petition was filed in one case.
In Saha Thai Steel Pipe PCL v. Wheatland Tube Co., a trade case, Wheatland Tube filed its brief in opposition to the petition. The petition presented the following questions:
- “Did the court below err by deferring to Commerce, rather than ascertaining for itself, whether the Commission had made the requisite material injury determination?”
- “May Commerce use scope rulings to assess antidumping duties on merchandise for which the Commission did not investigate material injury?”
Now, in response, Wheatland Tube argues that the plain terms of 19 U.S.C. § 1673(1) “authorize Commerce to define the ‘class or kind of foreign merchandise’ as part of its dumping analysis,” before, under 11 U.S.C. § 1673(2), the Commission “determines whether a domestic industry is materially injured . . . by reason of ‘that’ merchandise.” According to Wheatland Tube, “[a]n affirmative final material injury determination . . . presumptively applies to the entire ‘class or kind of foreign merchandise’ subject to Commerce’s affirmative final dumping determination.” It then argues that “there is no legal requirement that the Commission specifically identify and analyze each and every possible variation of the subject merchandise.” Further, Wheatland Tube asserts, “[t]he Federal Circuit’s review of Commerce’s scope rulings involves mixed questions of law and fact.” Thus, according to Wheatland Tube, although Commerce is not given discretion “on the initial legal question,” it is granted “‘substantial deference’ regarding its ultimate factual determination of whether the product at issue is covered by the scope based on the relevant evidence.”