[JURIST] New and interesting Opinions issued Thursday included Spargo v. New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct [PDF text], in which US District Judge David Hurd of the US District Court for the Northern District of New York [official website] threw out most of the rules prohibiting judges and judicial candidates in New York State from engaging in openly political activities. Also Thursday, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Xerox Corporation's claim that Palm Incorporated's handheld computer handwriting software violates Xerox's patent, while remanding the issue of the Xerox patent's basic validity to a lower court for further study. Unfortunately, this Opinion is not yet available online Thursday evening from either the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] or Georgetown University Law Library [Federal Circuit opinion collection].