Meta Platforms, Inc. has launched a new inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, filing IPR2026-00347 on May 13, 2026. At this stage, the PTAB docket reflects the petition filing, but practitioners should note that early-filed IPRs like this one often become important indicators of broader litigation and licensing strategy, especially when a major technology company is the petitioner.

The proceeding is styled Meta Platforms, Inc., identifying Meta as the challenging party.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced a $35 million settlement with Shutterstock over allegations that the company used deceptive subscription practices, including misleading consumers about billing terms and making cancellation unnecessarily difficult. The action is the latest in the FTC’s broader campaign against so-called “dark patterns” — interface designs or workflows that steer consumers into purchases, renewals, or ongoing charges they may not have knowingly agreed to.

At a high level, the case reflects a familiar enforcement theory: regulators are focusing not just on what companies disclose, but on how those disclosures are presented and whether consumers can realistically avoid or end recurring charges.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted emergency relief that keeps nationwide access to mifepristone by telemedicine and mail in place while litigation over the FDA’s regulatory approach moves forward. The order does not resolve the merits, but it preserves the current framework for prescribing and distributing the abortion pill for now — an important signal in a dispute with consequences well beyond reproductive health.

The underlying case challenges FDA decisions that allowed broader access to mifepristone, including dispensing through the mail and via telehealth.

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00362 on May 15, 2026. For patent litigators and in-house IP teams, this is the kind of proceeding worth watching early: even before the Board decides whether to institute review, the petition can offer a detailed roadmap of invalidity theories, claim-prioritization strategy, and the petitioner’s broader litigation posture.

At this stage, the publicly available case caption identifies Palo Alto Networks, Inc. as the petitioner, but the docket summary provided here does not specify the challenged patent number, the patent owner, or the exact unpatentability grounds asserted.

The Southern District of New York has unsealed multiple criminal indictments highlighting two enforcement priorities that continue to draw sustained federal attention: firearms trafficking with cross-border implications and bias-motivated violence. Among the newly announced cases are charges against Malik Bromfield, Faizan Ali, and Kamal Salman tied to the transport of dozens of firearms allegedly intended for attempted smuggling into Canada, as well as a separate hate-crime indictment against Shorai Moore.

While these matters are unlikely to reshape doctrine in the way a major appellate ruling might, they are still significant for practitioners because they reflect where federal investigators and prosecutors are investing resources.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has temporarily paused a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling that would have halted collection of tariffs imposed under President Trump’s trade program, preserving the status quo while appellate review moves forward. The order keeps the tariffs in place for now in a closely watched dispute over the scope of presidential trade authority and the limits of emergency-based executive action.

The litigation includes challenges brought by states and private importers, including State of Oregon v. Trump, now before the Federal Circuit.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is signaling that a proposed SEC settlement tied to disclosures around Elon Musk’s earlier Twitter stock purchases may face a tougher path than the parties expected. In a recent hearing, the court reportedly identified “red flags” in the proposed resolution, raising the possibility that the deal will not be approved in its current form.

That alone makes the matter worth watching.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a precedential opinion in appeal No. 25-1602 on May 12, 2026, signaling that the panel intended its ruling to carry weight beyond the immediate dispute. For practitioners, that designation alone matters: unlike an unpublished disposition, a precedential Sixth Circuit opinion is binding on district courts within the circuit and will likely shape briefing strategy in future appeals.

At a high level, the court resolved the issues presented in a published format, which means the panel concluded the case addressed a legal question significant enough to warrant a citable, authoritative ruling.

Federal prosecutors in Boston and the SEC have unsealed a closely watched insider-trading case alleging that confidential merger information was funneled from lawyers at elite law firms into a wider trading network. The government’s allegations center on Nicolo Nourafchan and Robert Yadgarov, and reportedly tie the flow of nonpublic deal information to attorneys associated with Goodwin Procter and Latham Watkins.

What makes this case stand out is not just the scale of the alleged trading scheme, but the source of the information.

Elon Musk has settled the SEC’s lawsuit over the timing of his 2022 disclosures about his initial Twitter stake, resolving one of the agency’s most closely watched beneficial-ownership reporting cases. Under the reported deal, a trust will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty, bringing to a close a dispute that tested how aggressively the SEC would pursue delayed Schedule 13D-style disclosures in a headline-making transaction.

The case centered on allegations that Musk did not timely disclose that he had crossed the 5% ownership threshold in Twitter stock, a milestone that can trigger federal reporting obligations for investors acquiring significant positions in public companies.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a precedential opinion on May 8, 2026, in docket number 25-1873. Although the docket information currently identifies the matter only as “Precedential Opinion,” the designation alone is significant for litigators: unlike unpublished dispositions, a precedential Sixth Circuit ruling becomes binding authority within the circuit and is likely to shape briefing, motion practice, and district court decision-making going forward.

At a minimum, practitioners should treat this opinion as one requiring immediate review for any issue overlap with active matters in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

A federal appeals fight scheduled for Thursday put an unusual and consequential question before the D.C. Circuit: how far a president or executive branch may go in penalizing private law firms based on the clients they represent or positions they take in politically charged matters.

According to reporting on the matter, former President Donald Trump is seeking appellate relief tied to efforts aimed at punishing major law firms.

In a May 11, 2026 filing in Michigan Western District Court, the State of Michigan submitted a brief supporting its motion to dismiss the amended complaint in case no. 1:26-cv-00246. At this stage, the State is asking the court to end some or all of the plaintiff’s claims before discovery proceeds, arguing that the amended pleading still does not state a legally viable case.

A motion like this typically tests the sufficiency of the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), and when the defendant is a state, it often also raises threshold defenses that can dispose of a case early—most notably sovereign immunity, jurisdictional defects, or the plaintiff’s failure to plead around statutory or constitutional limits on suit.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed climate plaintiffs a meaningful procedural win, ruling that Enbridge could not remove a climate-related suit to federal court after the statutory deadline had passed. The Court rejected Enbridge’s argument that the removal clock under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1) could be equitably tolled, leaving the case where it began: state court.

That may sound like a narrow civil-procedure dispute, but for litigators following energy and environmental cases, it is a consequential one.

One of the most closely watched AI-adjacent copyright disputes in legal tech is moving deeper into the appellate phase. Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence are now before the Third Circuit in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH, et al v. Ross Intelligence Inc, a case that has become a bellwether for how courts may treat the use of proprietary legal content in building competing research tools.

The dispute stems from allegations that Ross used Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw headnotes and related editorial material to train or develop its legal research platform without authorization.