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Health Plans Seek Supreme Court Review in ACA "Risk Corridors" Cases

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.12.19

On February 4, several health plans (including C&M client Maine Community Health Options) filed petitions for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking review of the Federal Circuit’s opinion in the ACA “risk corridors” cases, which held that while the risk corridors program contained a mandatory payment obligation on the part of the Government, that payment obligation was temporarily suspended by appropriations riders that restricted HHS funds available to satisfy the obligation, even though the riders did not amend or repeal the statutory payment obligation and even though the health plans had already performed their own reciprocal obligations under the statute. The petitioners are seeking review of the Federal Circuit’s opinion on several grounds, including (i) the restriction of funds to an agency via appropriations rider does not extinguish a statutory payment obligation of the United States, (ii) a rider that does not by its terms repeal or amend a money-mandating statute cannot impliedly and retroactively extinguish the Government’s payment obligation. The Maine petition is linked here. 

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Client Alert | 10 min read | 03.19.26

Emotional Perception Redefines AI Patents: The UK Supreme Court’s Groundbreaking Shift in Computer-Implemented Inventions

[1] In a recent development, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are not excluded from patentability due to being a computer program “as such.” In doing so, the Court set out the framework of a new test for the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to use when evaluating the patentability of computer. The ruling breaks down barriers to the patenting of AI algorithms in the UK and paves the way for a wider change in the UK IPO’s approach to assessing excluded subject matter....