Supreme Court Opinions

The followings are some of the major Supreme Court opinions. Each opinion describes the factual background, issues raised, and the reasoning behind the decision. Thus the opinions are understandable to most people although they are not easy to read.

(1)  Marbury v. Madison

This case was decided in 1803. Marbury remains the single most important decision in American constitutional law. The Court's landmark decision established that the U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals, and helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government. Another important holding is that it established the principle of judicial review, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statute, and some government actions that they find to violate the Constitution of the United States.

Here is the opinion:  William Marbury v. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States

(2)  Standard Oil Co. v. United States

In 1890 the United States passed the Sherman Antitrust Act (named after Senator John Sherman) to combat anticompetitive conducts. It also sought to prevent formation and preservation of illegal monopolies that could harm consumers. The Standard Oil case was a major case litigated under the Act. 

Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. In 1904, Standard Oil controlled 91 percent of production and 85 percent of final sales of a widely used energy product at that time, the kerosene. In 1909, the U.S. Justice Department sued Standard under the Sherman Antitrust Act for sustaining a monopoly and restraining interstate commerce by: "Rebates, preferences, and other discriminatory practices in favor of the combination by railroad companies; restraint and monopolization by control of pipe lines, and unfair practices against competing pipe lines; contracts with competitors in restraint of trade; unfair methods of competition, such as local price cutting at the points where necessary to suppress competition; [and] espionage of the business of competitors, the operation of bogus independent companies, and payment of rebates on oil, with the like intent." The government identified four illegal patterns: (1) secret and semi-secret railroad rates; (2) discrimination in the open arrangement of rates; (3) discrimination in classification and rules of shipment; (4) discrimination in the treatment of private tank cars. 

In 1911, the US Supreme Court declared the Standard Oil group to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act, Section II. It ordered Standard Oil to break up into independent companies with different boards of directors, the biggest two of the companies were Standard Oil of New Jersey (which became Exxon) and Standard Oil of New York (which became Mobil).

If you want to read more about Standard Oil and its co-founder, John D. Rockefeller, including a classic book on the history of Standard Oil, you can go to the Notable Events in History page.

In modern times, the United States government used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up AT&T, at that time the largest telephone company in the world. Many people believe that the breakup helped to speed up the development of new consumer digital communication products, which later allowed widespread usage of the Internet by ordinary people.

Here is the opinion:  The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey et al. v. The United States

(3)  New York Times Co. v. United States

This was a landmark 1971 decision of the US Supreme Court on the First Amendment. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship.

President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of The New York Times to print the materials without prior restraint unless the government can meet its burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.

Here is the opinion:  New York Times Co. v. United States

(4)  Google v. Oracle

Google v. Oracle was a 2021 legal case related to the nature of computer code and copyright law. The dispute centered on Google’s use of part of the Java programming language's application programming interfaces (APIs), which are owned by Oracle, within early versions of Google’s Android operating system. Google has admitted to using the APIs, and has since transitioned Android to a copyright-unburdened engine, but argued their original use of the APIs was within fair use.

The case has been of significant interest within the tech and software industries, as numerous computer programs and software libraries, particularly in open source, are developed by recreating the functionality of APIs from commercial or competing products to aid developers in interoperability between different systems or platforms.

The Supreme Court did not decide whether APIs are copyrightable. Instead, it decided that Google’s use of the API was fair use even assuming that Java language’s APIs are copyrightable.

Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.

(5)  Diamond v. Chakrabarty

Is living thing patentable? This is one of the issues decided by this case. The statute passed by the Congress is silent on this issue. 

Genetic engineer Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, working for General Electric, developed a bacterium (derived from the Pseudomonas genus and now known as Pseudomonas putida) capable of breaking down crude oil, which he proposed to use in treating oil spills. General Electric filed a patent application for the bacterium in the United States. The application was rejected by a patent examiner and the Board of Patent Appeal and Interferences. General Electric appealed to the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, which overturned the lower tribunals. The Patent Office, in the name of Commissioner Diamond, appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court issued its decision in 1980. In a 5-4 decision, it ruled in favor of Chakrabarty. The majority said that the words of the patent statute indicate that Congress intended for patentable subject matter to be given a broad scope, and there is nothing in the Court's precedents stating that living things are not patentable. This decision helped the development of the biotech industry.

Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks v. Chakrabarty

(to be continued)