Certiorari Petition: Wakefield v. Blackboard – Challenging Judge Newman’s Competency

by Dennis Crouch
This week, the Supreme Court is considering the re-filed certiorari petition of Franz Wakefield, dba CoolTVNetwork.com v. Blackboard, Inc. , No. 22-819.  The petition’s basis stems from the debate over Judge Newman’s competency.  The appellate case was decided by a panel that included Judge Newman, and the petitioner relies heavily upon the public documents circulated in the ongoing disability hearing. Including the repeated statements suggesting that Judge Newman lacks competence and “may suffer from impairment of cognitive abilities (i.e., attention, focus, confusion and memory).”  The petition notes that Judge Newman’s colleagues acted unanimously  to remove her from being assigned new cases.  Wakefield is pursuing his case pro se and so it lacks some fine points, but the thrust of the claims here are quite clear.
Read the petition here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-819/268013/20230531141520726_20230531-141242-95759941-00000772.pdf
On the 22nd of June, the court will also consider petitions in two additional IP cases that both focus on IPR procedure grounded in statutory interpretation:

Apple Inc. v. CalTech , No. 22-203: Scope of estoppel following IPR. After losing an IPR, when can defendant later raise similar issues in district court?
Nike v. Adidas , No. 22-927: Can the PTAB raise its own patentability objections to substitute claims that are different from those raised by the patent challenger?

As always, the odds are on denial, and we’ll know something by early July.