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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

'AXLE' ROWS - At the moment, the U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming term is looking like it could be an uneventful one for the IP crowd—that is unless the justices decide to grant cert in American Axle and Manufacturing v. Neapco, a patent eligibility case that could be an instant blockbuster. As Law.com's Scott Graham reports, the high court last spring asked for the solicitor general's views on whether it should take up the case, which centers on a disputed patent for an automotive drive shaft that is tuned to be less noisy. If that doesn't exactly sound enthralling, consider this: A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held the invention ineligible for patenting under Section 101 of the Patent Act and then split 6-6 on whether to reconsider the ruling en banc, prompting Judge Kimberly Moore to describe the court as "bitterly divided." The SG is expected to deliver its answer to SCOTUS sometime this fall. If the justices do end up taking the case, the case is sure to be closely watched since a ruling reversing the Federal Circuit would be a blow to technology companies that have used Section 101 challenges to defuse patent suits early in litigation, before high costs can be leveraged for a settlement.

GOING PRO - A first-of-its-kind survey looking at diversity in the business professional teams in law firms found that many of the firms were more diverse than they thought and have a strong female presence, but that leadership ranks within these teams are more evenly split, Law.com's Patrick Smith reports. Results of the survey, conducted by Calibrate Legal, suggest that women play a major role in the business of law firms, but may not be advancing at the same rate as their male peers. While the more junior ranks of these business departments are predominantly female, the leadership at the top does not match that proportion. That mirrors the lawyer ranks at many firms, where women and men are fairly even in the associate ranks, but far from it at the partner and equity partner levels. Still, it should be noted that women make up a majority of leadership and practice management positions at the firms surveyed. Jennifer Johnson, founder and CEO of Calibrate Legal, noted the shrinking ratio of women to men as the jobs became more senior, and said a long-running issue for women in the workforce is still very much playing out: "Women are the ones that have the babies," she said. "And it is still the case that a majority of the parenting falls on the mother."

NO VERITAS? - Project Veritas filed a defamation lawsuit against Stanford University and the University of Washington Wednesday in Washington Western District Court. The court action, filed by Clare Locke and Ard Law Group, arises from a blog published by Election Integrity Partnership in September 2020 centering on a report published by Veritas regarding election integrity in Minneapolis. Veritas contends that the defendants falsely accused the organization of making claims with no factual basis and spreading election misinformation. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 2:21-cv-01326, Project Veritas v. University of Washington et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

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EDITOR'S PICKS

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

THEY'RE UP IN EUROPE - Given the challenges of 2020, European law firms say they would have been happy to match their results from 2019, which in many cases was a record year for revenue. But as Law.com International's Anne Bagamery reports, the nine European firms on this year's Global 200 exceeded those expectations, notching revenue growth of 2.5% over the previous year. Law firm leaders and industry observers said that while European firms face intense competition from international firms based in the U.S. and U.K., they're also known for their steadiness. "Vis-à-vis the global mammoth firms, we are David, not Goliath," Alexander Ritvay, co-managing partner of Noerr, said. "But doesn't David get a lot of sympathy?"

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WHAT YOU SAID

"A decision is activist if it fails to consider a well-recognized decisional tool and does so in a non-transparent manner. Because Rucho disregarded several of those tools that were materially relevant to the disposition of the case, Rucho is a decidedly activist opinion."