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Re:Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster... by dragonwriter on Thursday October 08, 2020 @04:54PM (#24723838)
> I think the most likely outcome of this case (especially with the absence of Justice Ginsburg) is a remand to the Federal Circuit with instructions to pay more attention to the trial court’s findings.

I think that's somewhat unlikely; I think its somewhat more likely that the court concludes that the Federal Circuit erred in using de novo review, but instead of remanding to the Federal Circuit for reasonableness review reconsiders the jury verdict on the bases of the trial record itself (especially if by doing so it can uphold the trial verdict and kick the copyrightability issue down the road to another case.)

While the Supreme Court will dodge hard issues where it can, it doesn't tend to do it in a way which leaves a good chance that the same issue will come to them again in the same case. When they dodge, they like to make sure the issue stays dodged, at least for the immediate case. There's way too much risk that the Federal Circuit would reach the same answer if told to use a reasonableness standard of review (I don't think it should, but absent reaching the answer itself, the Supreme Court can't be sure of that), which would leave the copyrightability issue to come before the Court again before this case would be finalized.

Re:Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster... by granzymes on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:03PM (#24723929)
I gave more weight to a remand than SCOTUS upholding the trial verdict itself primarily because the court is currently shorthanded. I agree that the court prefers to punt for good !
Re:Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster... by dragonwriter on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:21PM (#24724068)
> I gave more weight to a remand than SCOTUS upholding the trial verdict itself primarily because the court is currently shorthanded.

I think you are correct that it is more likely for that reason than it would otherwise be, though I still think its less likely than a more permanent punt on the case (that would still leave the issue live for a future case.)

But that's just my intuition.