Legal Geek No. 77: Supreme Court Deadlock at End of 2016 Term

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we take a look at some of the significant decisions being handed down this month by the Supreme Court in a quirky term with only 8 justices and plenty of gridlock.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp77

The final two or three weeks in June, you can always count on the most contentious decisions in the annual Supreme Court term to finally be decided before the Justices take a summer recess in July and August. As we discussed back in February, the death of Antonin Scalia left a hole on the Court which allows for 4-4 split decisions and gridlock, as such cases end up being mere affirmances of whatever the lower court decision was. Perhaps thankfully, there are no cases this term quite at the level of importance of last year's Obergefell gay marriage decision, or recent decisions on Obamacare and the second amendment.

The deadlock has not failed to appear, especially this week when two important cases were handed down with 4-4 decisions on the same day.

One of these was a victory for conservatives as a lower court decision blocking President Obama's executive actions to reform immigration by granting amnesty to several million illegal immigrants was upheld by the completely-split Court. That result means Obama will likely not be able to do anything in this field before his second term is finished in this regard, and immigration will remain a hot topic of the campaign, which could actually favor Donald Trump, surprisingly. Time will tell, however, as elections are not decided on one issue.

The other of these was a legal technicality case about whether an Indian tribal court can properly exercise jurisdiction over tort claims against non-tribe member defendants. The 4-4 split means that the tribal court maintains jurisdiction, as decided by the lower federal courts.

However, thanks to Justice Kagan being recused from the important affirmative action case regarding the University of Texas's admissions policies, the Court did get forced to a 4-3 decision. This decision favored more liberal thinking as race-conscious university admissions policies which are narrowly tailored to meet the strict scrutiny standard remain acceptable, just like in a case a decade ago focusing on Michigan Law School's admissions policies. In reality, this keeps affirmative action at the status quo it currently is, rather than severely curtailing it.

However, some late-term cases can still come to a decision, as proven by the three patent and copyright law cases decided this month along with the Fourth Amendment decision this week confirming that breathalyzer tests without a warrant are acceptable invasions of privacy under constitutional law in a suspected DUI situation, while blood tests continue to not be acceptable. So breathalyzer tests will remain an effective tool and deterrent to drinking and driving.

The Bottom Line is, even without any huge cases outside perhaps the affirmative action case, the issues presented to the Supreme Court are still very interesting and contentious. As a result, for those who enjoy watching the Court, this is basically an extended Christmas season. Enjoy the rest of the few decisions remaining, as we turn our attention back to presidential politics and who will finally fill Scalia's empty seat.

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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy

Legal Geek No. 76: A Great Week for Google in the Courts, but What Does It Mean?

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we review a great week in the courts for Google last week and what the bigger scale implications may be thanks to these decisions.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp76

Almost two weeks ago, Google had two big court decisions be handed down by juries in Delaware and in California on consecutive days.

The first was a patent infringement lawsuit in Delaware in which the jury found that Google's mapping technology used in the Google Earth application did not infringe a patent from the mid-90s from a German company that had developed a similar program called Terravision back then. Moreover, the jury found that the patent was invalid as well. 

The claims in the patent at issue were all about how image resolution is handled when zooming in from a larger satellite image to a more detailed view of a specific area. Google was able to handle image resolution in a different manner that the jury determined was outside what the patent covered. 

With the patent due to expire in 2016 anyway, this type of technology is becoming open to public use by other developers regardless of the invalidity decision. So while this is a big multi-million dollar win for Google and users of Google Earth, it pales in comparison to the other case decided in favor of Google.

That case in California was the latest in a long battle between Oracle and Google over whether Google's use of several elements of application programming interfaces or APIs from the Java programming language when making the mobile platform for Android was copyright infringement. Oracle sought damages of up to $8.8 billion dollars for Google's use of the pre-written computing instructions Oracle created to help programmers more easily write in Java!

This round of the long legal fight was limited to the question of whether Google's use of the APIs was protected as fair use. Any recent follower of this segment knows that this is the hotbed area of development in copyright law in the U.S., with more and more things becoming deemed fair use rather than copyright infringement. 

Although fair use is a complicated test based on the facts, the jury here appears to have decided in favor of Google and fair use based on only a small amount of material being copied from Oracle's code and Google's transformative use of that code to make something new, a mobile phone platform. 

This case could potentially have much bigger impact on the fair use doctrine because Oracle is going to appeal this to the Federal Circuit and to the Supreme Court, if necessary. This is precisely the type of case between two powerhouse companies and legal teams that could set the table for a big shift in the definition of fair use. Which would change copyright law and infringement forever. So stay tuned. 

The Bottom Line is, Google's big wins are obviously good for them and users of these techs in the short term, but that copyright case could become one of the biggest in IP law history if it changes fair use rules and standards.

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Temporary Closer: Thanks for listening. If you enjoy this segment and will be coming to Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio in June, please message me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy and we can meet up. I'm also giving two seminars about game design and the law, feel free to check them out.

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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy