MINNEAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) are engaging in unconstitutional practices in Minnesota by stopping and questioning people they perceive to be Somali and Latino without “reasonable suspicion” of removability and arresting people without warrants and probable cause, three residents of Minnesota who are U.S. citizens allege in a Jan. 15 putative class complaint filed in a federal court in their state.

MIAMI — An expert for Walgreens Co. who opined that a woman who fell in a store may have had a seizure due to alcohol withdrawal was improperly excluded, a Florida appeals court held Jan. 14, reversing a more than $5 million verdict in a slip-and-fall case and remanding the case for a new trial.

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  A U.S. senator and retired Navy captain who was issued a censure letter and faces a deduction in his retirement pay for making public statements labeled as “sedition” and “treason” about servicemembers' legal obligations to disregard federal orders sued the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy and their respective secretaries in federal court in the District of Columbia alleging violations of the First Amendment and breach of other constitutional rights .

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Supreme Court on Jan. 14 vacated a lower court’s ruling summarily denying sanctions and directed it to enter an order to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed on the district attorney of Nevada County for allegedly submitting briefing on a man’s bail tainted with artificial intelligence errors.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Jan. 14 opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that the claims of a pet food company’s packaging container patent application were unpatentable as obvious.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) was right to refuse a design entity’s request to register a trademark for the phrase “Sazerac Stitches” because the mark is confusingly similar to registered mark “Sazerac,” a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The U.S. government on Jan. 14 sued the state of California in California federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that a state law that restricts oil and gas drilling “effectively nullifies vested federal lease rights” and is invalid because it constitutes an obstruction that is “contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a short opinion issued Jan. 14, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s entry of summary judgment of noninfringement to Apple Inc. in a patent infringement suit brought against it by another technology entity, agreeing that Apple’s accused product does not meet claim limitations required under the judge’s unchallenged claim constructions.