WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on Dec. 1 filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the petition of Monsanto Co., which is challenging a $1.25 million damages award for injuries from exposure to the herbicide Roundup. The government says that the lower court’s decision, which rejected Monsanto’s argument that the lawsuit was preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), is “incorrect.”

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge on Dec. 1 denied motions for class decertification and for summary judgment filed by two companies that are accused of deceptively marketing pacifiers as “orthodontic” in violation of Illinois law, California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and the consumer protection laws of several other states, and denied Daubert motions to exclude experts filed by both the plaintiffs and the defendants.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec. 1 from an internet service provider (ISP) that contends that it can be found liable for customers’ copyright infringement through piracy only if it committed a culpable act, while a group of record labels and music publishers told the justices that the ISP’s continuous providing of service to internet protocol (IP) addresses of known infringers constitutes liability under the material contribution standard (Cox Communications, Inc., et al. v. Sony Music Entertainment, et al., No. 24-171, U.S. Sup.).

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel once again ruled against a technology company on Dec. 1, affirming a finding of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of the company’s patent describing a handheld device using a camera to receive gesture-based inputs are invalid as anticipated; the panel also dismissed the company’s appeal in part related to other patent claims that the appellate court had already held to be invalid.

ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that a general liability insurance policy’s employers liability exclusion barred coverage for injuries suffered by a convenience store employee who was shot while leaving work, reversing a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling against an insurer and remanding for further proceedings.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 26 denied a motion by U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and its board for partial vacatur of a stay pending appeal granted by the appellate court in June after a trial court issued a summary judgment ruling for the USIP parties and declared the removal of USIP’s board and staff “null and void.”

CHICAGO — An Illinois appeals court panel held that a management company for multiple nursing care facilities is not entitled to recover the expenses it incurred following a cyberattack on one of its payroll vendors, affirming a lower court’s ruling in favor of an insurer in the management company’s declaratory judgment lawsuit.

ATLANTA — A split 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the Florida attorney general’s motion to stay pending appeal of a preliminary injunction issued by a district court to stop enforcement of certain provisions of a Florida law that seeks to regulate access to certain social media platforms for Florida youth, finding “that the balance of the harms and the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction.”