Block on Trump's Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court, Judges Can Release Secret Grand Jury Records, Politicians Can't Block Voters on Facebook, Court Rules. The U.S. Supreme Court gave Samsung Electronics Co. its first good news in a while on Tuesday, reversing a nearly $400 million verdict against it for infringing on Apple Inc.’s iPhone patent.

“The risk that W [the recipient] could have disclosed it, if he chose to, does not negate the reasonableness of M’s [Marakah’s] expectation of privacy,” the court ruled. Want to discuss? A second texting case was also before the courts today involving a man who was convicted based on text messages police obtained via a production order and used to lay marijuana and firearms trafficking charges.

We asked you to let the Supreme Court know your reaction to the shocking ruling that changes the original meaning of the word “sex” to include gender identity and attraction and creates a protected class for LGBTQ+ people. The federal appellate court reversed on the ground that the search in this context was unreasonable as excessively intrusive. Police relied on those texts to gain a conviction and an Ontario trial judge ruled that Marakah had no reasonable expectation of privacy once his texts arrived with their intended recipient.

If, however, the Federal Circuit wants to read the tea leaves of the justices’ terse opinion, it might develop a detailed test for how to calculate damages, and reduce the damages that Samsung had to pay Apple. At the heart of the case was a challenge brought by Nour Marakah, who argued that police overstepped their bounds when they obtained texts sent from him and stored on an alleged accomplice’s phone. In the wake of a disastrous week at the Supreme Court, your voice was heard, 80,000 times!
Indeed, while there has been recognition that employers in the private sector have wide latitude in monitoring electronic communications of employees when advance notice has been provided, over time, courts have been finding exceptions to that general rule.

The Supreme Court ruled that is not the case in this instance, and noted that Marakah had in fact asked the recipient several times to delete his messages. The principle was based in the statutory language of the Patent Act, which specifies that damages derive from profits created by the sale of an “article of manufacture.”, The Supreme Court upended the traditional interpretation of the phrase “article of manufacture.” In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, it held that the words, “article of manufacture” don’t necessarily refer to the whole object that is available for sale. He, therefore, was written up for not complying with the City's written policy. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The Truth About Trump's Covid-19 Cocktail ‘Cure’, Apple’s New 5G IPhones May Be Left on the Shelf. The case is the latest in a string of decisions over the past several years in which the Supreme Court has rejected rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which specializes in patent law, among other things. They also serve as a means for bosses to communicate with the player. As it turns out, the SWAT team member had used the pager to send and receive many personal messages, some of which apparently were sexual in nature. Then it could award Apple the same damages it got last time. At bottom is a serious policy question: whether the traditional test should be seen as outmoded in the area of modern information technology. The SWAT team member filed an appeal. They were informed by supervisors that the text messages on the pagers were tantamount to emails and were thus governed by the City's written policy. Text messages can be private once received, Supreme Court rules.

But the thrust of the opinion was that damages could be computed based on the profit Samsung made from specific infringing features of the phone -- not based on the overall profit from all sales of infringing smartphones. The Federal Circuit’s opinion was based on what was considered a well-established principle of damages in patent law: When one manufacturer infringes the patent of another, damages are to be calculated based on the profits made by the sale of the entire offending article. That could turn out to be true -- if and only if the Supreme Court doesn’t subsequently reject whatever test the Federal Circuit develops. Visit our professional site ». Have a confidential tip for our reporters?

It could be argued that the Supreme Court, which doesn’t know much about patent law, was wise to ask the Federal Circuit, which does, to develop a new test, rather than doing it on its own.

By rejecting that argument, the Federal Circuit essentially took the position that there is nothing essentially different about selling a patent-infringing smartphone and selling a patent-infringing cotton gin. Rather, the court said, “an article of manufacture ... is simply a thing made by hand or machine.” As a result, the term “is broad enough to encompass both a product sold to a consumer as well as a component of that product.”. His books include “The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.”. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled Ontario man Nour Marakah had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the text messages sent to his accomplice in a handgun trafficking case. The SWAT team member filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were violated by the review of the text messages. Get a roundup of the most important and intriguing national stories delivered to your inbox every weekday. The United States Supreme Court currently is considering a case involving the potential privacy of text messages sent and received on employer-provided equipment by employees.

All rights reserved. While the policy did afford limited personal use, the City stated that it could monitor all network activity. His appeal of that conviction made the argument that police should have to obtain a warrant, not just a production order, to seize the texts from the service provider.

Search, Supreme Court of U.S. to Rule on Text Message Privacy, District Court Rules In Favor of Work Email Privacy, Should Cellphone Companies Be Able to Censor the Messages We Send? The holding was narrow, and the justices sent the case back to the appeals court to figure out what the correct damages should be. The group warned that if the Supreme Court upheld the Ontario trial judge’s ruling, it would lead to a “palpable erosion” in the privacy of Canadians. Police had used the production order to seize texts the convicted individual had sent in the past and which were stored on a Telus server.

To contact the author of this story: Noah Feldman at [email protected], To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stacey Shick at [email protected].

The group warned that if the Supreme Court upheld the Ontario trial judge’s ruling, it would lead to a “palpable erosion” in the privacy of Canadians.

In a significant but nuanced ruling Friday morning, the Supreme Court of Canada acquitted a Toronto man whose text messages to an alleged accomplice were used by police to secure seven convictions for trafficking illegal firearms, ruling that the man had expected the texts to remain private. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court rules in this case.

For example, it could have said that the ease of incorporating features into technology using modern manufacturing methods renders the old rule obsolete. In City of Ontario v. Quon, the issue presented is whether a police SWAT team member had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment with respect to text messages sent and received on his work-issued pager.
Learn more about FindLaw’s newsletters, including our terms of use and privacy policy. READ MORE: The Supreme Court ruling on R. v. Marakah. To receive a weekly email link to Mr. Sinrod's columns, please send an email to him with Subscribe in the Subject line.

The high-speed wireless network isn’t up to snuff yet and 4G phones work fine.

The SWAT team member, along with others, was provided with a pager by the City. While the context is that of a governmental employee, it is possible the Court's ultimate ruling could have implications for employees and employers in the private sector as well. 1 Progression 2 Bosses 2.1 Supreme Calamitas 2.2 Despawn messages 3 … If the appeals court is feeling recalcitrant and frustrated with the Supreme Court, which isn’t impossible, the Federal Circuit could hold that certain products are inherently integrated, and that smartphones are an example. Relying on text alone is a trick the court likes to use to avoid considering issues of legal policy. States should prepare to protect voters from intimidation. The Verizon/NARAL Controversy, Supreme Court To Rule on Privacy of Text Messages. The logic of this position is that integrated manufacturing is hardly a new development. The court warned though that the right to expect texts to remain private even once they arrive to their intended destination may vary between cases. After the character limit continued to be exceeded, the police chief commanded a review of the messages to determine if the operative character limit was sufficient.

LISTEN: 770 CHQR’s Rob Breakenridge with Michael Geist. Canadians sending texts can expect that those will remain private even when they land in the recipient’s inbox – but that right is not absolute. It’s all fine and dandy for Sotomayor to write that “the text resolves this case.” But it doesn’t -- not really. While the context is that of a governmental employee, it is possible the Court's ultimate ruling could have implications for employees and employers in the private sector as well.

Justices rely on the language of the law to overturn a huge verdict while avoiding big patent-infringement questions.