Homosexuality is illegal in 36 African nations, and South Africa is the only country on the continent where same-sex marriage is not prohibited [BBC report]. In May Malawi President Joyce Banda announced in her first national address [text] that she would decriminalize homosexual acts [JURIST report]. This announcement came as a move to normalize relations with Malawi's development partners in response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration [official websites] pledging to promote LGBT rights when granting foreign aid [JURIST report]. In September 2010 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] called for countries around the world to abolish laws discriminating against gay and lesbian individuals [JURIST report].

Apple has been embroiled in continuous patent litigation, particularly with Samsung [corporate website] in courts around the world, with multiple rulings within the last month alone. Some commentators have noted that this legal strategy has been an effort to influence the marketplace from the courtroom [JURIST op-ed]. Two weeks ago, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] ruled that that Samsung violated the Tariff Act of 1930 [JURIST report] when it infringed four intellectual property patents held by Apple. Earlier in October, the Dutch Rechtbank's-Gravenhage [official website, in Dutch] court ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] an Apple software patent for user input and date manipulation through a "multi-touch" touch screen. Similarly, a UK court also ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple design patent. In mid-October, Apple appealed a Tokyo District Court ruling [JURIST report] which dismissed the company's claim that Samsung had infringed on its patents. At the beginning of the month, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] reversed an injunction [JURIST report] against Samsung that prevented it from selling its Galaxy Nexus product.

Gun control has been a controversial domestic and international issue in recent years. In 2010 the US Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that the Second Amendment [text] applied to states and municipalities as well as the federal government. The court's decision in McDonald followed its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report], which held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self defense. Internationally, a deadline for approval of a UN arms treaty passed in July, after treaty opponents in the US urged [JURIST report] President Barach Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not to support the agreement if it contained provisions applying to civilian arms possession.

In this case, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have raised serious questions about whether the challenged sections of the CASE Act violate their First Amendment right to free speech and other constitutional rights. In addition, the balance of hardships tips sharply in favor of issuing a TRO. Defendant Harris's counsel represented to the Court that the State would be in no position to enforce the law until March 20, 2013. The harm to Defendants of a TRO therefore appears to be minimal. ... Plaintiffs, by contrast, would suffer the potential loss of their "ability to speak anonymously on the Internet," which is protected by the First Amendment.

Proposition 35 was approved [Los Angeles Times report] 81 percent of California voters. The law seeks to increase criminal penalties on human traffickers, requires persons convicted of human trafficking to register as a sex offenders and implements human trafficking training for police officers. Some have criticized [CA Secretary of State website] the proposition for being too broad, as it demands lifetime registration for even very minor sex offenses like public urination and can prosecute anyone for receiving financial support from a registered offender. This law might affect more than 73,000 Californians, who would also have to report any new accounts or usernames they create to law enforcement within 24 hours of their creation or face potential criminal penalties, including imprisonment.

The disclosure failed to state in clear terms what the invention was. Pfizer gained a benefit from the [Patent] Act—exclusive monopoly rights—while withholding disclosure in spite of its disclosure obligations under the Act. As a matter of policy and sound statutory interpretation, patentees cannot be allowed to 'game' the system in this way.

Pfizer has appeared in court numerous times over recent years for issues of patent dispute and drug experimentation. Pfizer has successfully argued against Teva in the US [complaint, PDF], Spain, New Zealand and Norway. In September 2009 Pfizer settled a health care fraud suit [JURIST report] for a record $2.3 billion upon allegations that the company's drug Bextra was misbranded and promoted for "off-label" uses with the intent to defraud or mislead. In July 2009 Pfizer reached a final settlement [JURIST report] with the Nigerian state of Kano over allegedly illegal clinical trials [BBC backgrounder] of the then-experimental antibiotic Trovan [Pfizer fact sheet] conducted in 1996. The suit accused the company of administering meningitis medication to 200 Nigerian children, 100 of which included Trovan, without government authorization or guardian consent.

My Office takes note of Law 38, granting amnesty at the national level for "acts made necessary by the 17 February revolution"; as well as Law 35, which purportedly ensures that any act found to be in contravention of international laws and human rights covenants will not be exempt. I encourage the new Libyan government, scheduled to be sworn in in the coming days, to ensure that there is no amnesty for international crimes and no impunity for crimes, regardless of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.

The dispute over who will try key Libyan war criminals has strained relations between Libya and the ICC. In October, Amnesty International urged the Libyan government to hand over Al-Senussi to the ICC [JURIST report], expressing concern that he could not receive a fair trial in a national court. Earlier that month Libyan officials, in a hearing before the ICC, promised a fair trial for Gaddafi's son [JURIST report], Saif al-Islam, and urged the court to allow a national trial. Saif al-Islam said in August that he would prefer a trial in the ICC [JURIST report] because he felt he could not get a fair trial in Libya. In June four ICC staff members who traveled to Libya to speak with Saif al-Islam were detained [JURIST report] by Libyan security forces. They were in custody for nearly four weeks. Upon her release [JURIST report], ICC lawyer Melinda Taylor said she did not believe Saif al-Islam would receive a fair trial in the country.

German courts have been called upon before to adjudicate disputes involving the freedom of expression and the Holocaust. In 2010 a German court convicted [JURIST report] UK Bishop Richard Williamson of denying the Holocaust. Williamson's charges stemmed from a 2009 Swedish television broadcast in which Williamson doubted 6 million Jews were killed in gas chambers. Holocaust denial constitutes a crime under Section 130 (3) [text] of the German federal criminal code. As legislation is passed worldwide banning the denial of genocide, government's are increasingly being called to balance freedom of expression and human rights [JURIST op-ed].

If the Court allows PFC Manning to plead guilty by exceptions and substitutions, the Government may still elect to prove up the charged offenses. Pleading by exceptions and substitutions, in other words, does not change the offenses with which PFC Manning has been charged and for which he is scheduled to stand trial.

Manning's case has engendered a great deal of controversy. In August JURIST guest columnist Philip Cave argued that the lack of transparency [JURIST op-ed] in Manning's case undermines the validity of the eventual verdict. In June Army Col. Denise Lind, the judge in Manning's case ordered the prosecution to submit to her a number of files that were allegedly withheld from the defense during discovery [JURIST report]. Earlier in June Lind denied a motion [JURIST report] to dismiss eight of the 22 charges against Manning after his defense had argued they were unconstitutionally vague. In May UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez accused the US government of cruel and inhuman treatment [JURIST report] of Manning. The US military court referred Manning's case for court-martial in February after a US Army panel of experts declared Manning competent to stand trial [JURIST reports] last April.

[The plaintiffs] want a judicial order that would make the Secretary of Defense care less about the Secretary's view of the best military policy, and more about the Secretary's regard for his own finances. Plaintiffs believe that giving the Secretary of Defense a financial stake in the conduct of interrogators would lead the Secretary to hold the rights of detainees in higher regard—which surely is true, but that change would come at an uncertain cost in national security.

Several Bush administration officials have been sued in recent years for alleged torture and illegal detention. In June 2011 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] upheld the dismissal [JURIST report] of a torture suit against Rumsfeld brought by four Afghan and five Iraqi citizens alleging they were illegally detained and tortured. Also last year the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd [Cornell LII backgrounder] that former US attorney general John Ashcroft [JURIST news archive] was immune from suit [JURIST report] by a witness detained in a terror investigation. In February 2011 the Center for Constitutional Rights and the European Center for Human Rights [advocacy websites] urged [JURIST report] the signatory states of the UN Convention Against Torture [text] to pursue criminal charges against former president George W. Bush. Other calls to investigate the criminal culpability of Bush and officials in his administration have been consistently rejected by US officials [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF] Wednesday in two cases. The issue in the first case, Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc. [transcript, PDF; JURIST report], was whether a federal court has Article III [text] jurisdiction over a party's challenge to the validity of a trademark if the owner of the trademark has agreed not to sue the party over alleged infringement. This case arose from Nike [corporate website] challenging several shoes manufactured by Already, alleging that the company was using patented design techniques from Nike's "Air Force One" shoes. When Already filed a counterclaim challenging the validity of Nike's patent, Nike petitioned the court to dismiss its suit against Already as well as Already's counterclaim. Nike then issued a promise to Already that it would not pursue any further action because, as Nike's lawyer explained to the Supreme Court, "Nike concluded that [Already's] activities were no longer significant enough to warrant the cost of litigation." Already still wished to pursue its claim challenging Nike's patent, but Nike argued that since it vowed not to pursue litigation, there was no longer any "case or controversy" as required under Article III of the US Constitution. The district court agreed with Nike and dismissed both claims, and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] affirmed [opinion] that decision last year. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine both whether Nike's promise not to sue is broad enough to assure that it will not assert a future claim against Already if it infringes on the same trademark in a different way, and whether Nike has the ability to avoid an attack on its trademark validity by making a promise like this.

The Supreme Court also heard arguments on Wednesday in Marx v. General Revenue Corp. [transcript, PDF; JURIST report]. In this case, the issue was whether a defendant who prevails in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) [text, PDF] case is entitled to attorney's fees even if the claim was not brought against them in bad faith. The FDCPA states that "[o]n a finding by the court that an action under this section was brought in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment, the court may award to the defendant attorney's fees." Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) [text] establishes what is known as "the American rule," and does not allow attorney's fees to be collected by the prevailing party unless a statute, another federal rule or a court order awards them. In this case, the plaintiff is not alleging that the claim brought against her for collection of payments on her student loan were made in bad faith, but that she received phone calls and visits to her work that amounted to harassment. The district court ruled against the plaintiff and the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed that decision last year, ruling that the FDCPA requires bad faith in order for attorney's fees to be awarded, not just harassment. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on both of these issues after it finishes its fall term.