For more than 40 years, California was out of synch with the U.S. Supreme Court, permitting defendants in state antitrust actions to argue that direct purchasers suffered no harm because they passed price increases on to consumers. With a ruling Monday that eliminates the pass-through defense, California's now in step with the federal courts.

You couldn't ask for a whole lot more excitement (at least for patent lawyers) than Tuesday's double feature. In the morning: arguments in Therasense v. Becton Dickinson, the case that is widely expected to redefine standards for the inequitable conduct claims that have swamped the courts in recent years. And in the afternoon: EchoStar's last, best chance to get out from under a $100 million contempt ruling in its epic infringement fight with TiVo.

A federal judge in Brooklyn agreed Thursday to certify classes of direct and indirect purchasers in a set of suits accusing four Chinese manufacturers of joining a cartel to fix prices for vitamin C. The litigation has drawn a rare U.S. court appearance by the Chinese government, which hired Sidley Austin to back the companies' defense.