WASHINGTON, D.C. — An en banc ruling reversing a panel conclusion about who constitutes an interested party in the government procurement setting will stand after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an artificial intelligence computer vision company’s petition for certiorari and argument that it could challenge a government contract even though it wasn’t an active bidder in the process.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued two decisions on Jan. 12 that it designated as precedential; both decisions concern the PTO and the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) discretion in granting petitions.

PHILADELPHIA — Issuing a nonprecedential disposition affirming summary judgment against a class of retirement plan participants, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that the fund selection and monitoring process at issue were “adequate to satisfy the duty of prudence imposed on fiduciaries by” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 asked the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General to state the government’s position on a petition for a writ of certiorari that the court is considering on whether state unfair competition laws are preempted by federal law in cases accusing compounding pharmacies of marketing drugs without premarket approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a case echoing asbestos litigation, oil companies and Louisiana on Jan. 12 sparred during oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court over whether well drilling activities in the state were sufficiently related to World War II-era contracts involving the production of aviation gasoline to trigger federal jurisdiction under 2011 amendments to the federal officer removal statute.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A terminated multiemployer pension plan on Jan. 9 waived its right to respond to a certiorari petition filed on behalf of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) in which the U.S. solicitor general argues that the decision at issue “will likely result in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to terminated pension plans that Congress intentionally excluded from” a special financial assistance (SFA) program and urges the U.S. Supreme Court to “grant review without awaiting the development of a circuit conflict.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Jan. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether provisions of the Communications Act, by which the Federal Communications Commission assesses and enforces the payment of monetary forfeitures, violate the Seventh Amendment or Article III of the U.S. Constitution, granting certiorari in cases involving former practices of AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. under which they sold customers’ location data to third parties.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) was correct to reject a man’s request to register trademarks based on the name of New York Yankees player Aaron Judge because the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and Judge established they had priority of use, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.