Good morning and welcome to Supreme Court Brief. The justices are in the middle of their first non-argument week. They did not grant review in any news cases Monday, but they did ask for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in a patent case involving something many travelers use today. We have details. And a vigorous lobbying effort to have the justices overrule the Insular Cases failed when the court denied review of a Tenth Circuit ruling. And, scroll down for some scholarly thoughts on what the justices might do in the term's major affirmative action challenge scheduled for argument on Oct. 31.

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Luggage Locks

You know those dual-access luggage locks that allow airline passengers to lock their checked bags and keep them locked after TSA screening? Two patents on the physical process for screening luggage without breaking the locks are the subject of the justices' most recent call for the views of the U.S. solicitor general.

In Tropp v. Travel Sentry Inc.,et al, patent holder David Tropp asks the justices to decide whether his patent claims reciting a series of steps involving a physical process rather than computer-processing steps are patent-eligible under the Patent Act, as interpreted in the high court's 2014 decision in Alice Corporation Pty v. CLS Bank International. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, affirming a district court decision, ruled they are not patent eligible because the claims are directed to an abstract concept.