WASHINGTON, D.C. — Finding that a coding technology company still held a valid exclusive license to a series of patents and copyrights when it shifted its business to enforcement of intellectual property, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Delaware federal court’s dismissal of the company’s suit against Broadcom Inc. and other defendant-appellees because the university that owned the intellectual property was not an otherwise necessary party and because the plaintiff-appellant’s license was not terminated as a result of the shift in business.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court in a split decision late Sept. 14 denied the government’s application to stay a Massachusetts federal judge’s injunction barring mandatory enforcement of the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) mail-in ballot rule for elections occurring on or before the Nov. 3 midterm elections pending appeal, blocking the government’s attempt to restore requirements that states submit voter-linked information through a federal portal for ballot verification that the government said was necessary for election integrity but drew privacy challenges over disclosure of confidential voter data, among other issues.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its petitioner’s brief filed Sept. 14 in the U.S. Supreme Court, Apple Inc. urges the court to reverse a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding a district court’s contempt finding against Apple over anticompetitive practices on its App Store in an antitrust dispute with Epic Games Inc., arguing that the Ninth Circuit erred in affirming contempt based on an injunction’s “spirit” rather than its text.

NEW ORLEANS — A majority of a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Sept. 14 that a television production company insured forfeited its argument that an insurance policy’s “reality show” exclusion is ambiguous and, therefore, must be construed in its favor, affirming a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the insurer in a coverage dispute arising from underlying injury claims brought against the insured by participants of the reality television show “My 600-lb Life.”

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s judgment for six former employees of a state transit agency who were awarded more than $1 million each by a jury for the agency’s failure to accommodate their religious objections to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, holding that the agency was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law or a new trial because it did not carry its burden of showing that the religious objections could not be accommodated without undue hardship.

PASADENA, Calif. — A divided Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied rehearing en banc after a panel partially affirmed, partially reversed and partially vacated a trial court’s ruling on the appropriate use of land in Los Angeles at the center of a class action lawsuit by disabled homeless veterans.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump’s removal of a member of the National Labor Relations Board shortly after his January 2025 inauguration and more than three years before her term was to end is permissible under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, and so her petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied or, alternatively, granted and summarily affirmed, Trump and former NLRB member Marvin E. Kaplan argue in a Sept. 14 opposition brief filed in the high court.

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 11 affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling that insurers have no duty to defend against underlying lawsuits alleging the insureds violated the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, holding that the underlying actions assert that the insureds “intentionally made payments” to foreign terrorist organizations and, as a result, do not allege an occurrence under the policies.