Nazir Jinnah

By Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg BNA The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court signaled Aug. 29 that they may be interested in reviewing the display of controversial Confederate symbols. The high court asked Mississippi Gov. Dewey Phillip Bryant (R) to respond to a lawsuit challenging the inclusion of the Confederate Battle Flag on the state’s standard. The request makes it more likely that the court will agree to take up the case — but it is still an uphill battle. The court hears less than 1 percent of the thousands of cases brought to it each year, according to the court’s website. The request comes amid unrest nationwide over the public display of Confederate symbols. The planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was the stated reason for white nationalists’ protests in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11 and 12. Those protests led to violent clashes with counterprotesters that resulted in one death, and an uneven response from President Donald Tr...

By Peter Leung, Bloomberg BNA The nation’s patent appeals court reopened a dispute about whether patent filers who contest rejections in district court must pay the Patent and Trademark Office’s lawyer fees. A majority of a three-judge panel in June said that appealing patent filers must pay the lawyer fees, because a statute requires the filer to pay the PTO’s “expenses,” which include lawyers’ salaries. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided Aug. 31, without request from the parties, to rehear the case before the full court. NantKwest Inc. sued in district court after the PTO rejected its patent application for a cancer treatment. After winning, the PTO moved for its expenses, including attorneys’ fees. The district court rejected the request for those fees, and the PTO appealed. If the Federal Circuit sides with NantKwest, it would create a split between patent and trademark law. Trademark law has a provision with largely identical wording, and the U.S. C...