The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case later this week that some are touting as pivotal in the business of sports.

American Needle Inc. v. the NFL, a supposed David vs. Goliath-type case that could help define the NFL's antitrust status, is on the docket for Jan. 13.

It dates back to 2004, when American Needle, an Illinois-based hat maker, brought an antitrust case against NFL, claiming the league was using its monopoly power to muscle it out of its fair share of revenue for caps it made bearing NFL logos. The NFL won the case at the trial and appellate levels, but American Needle appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

An appellate court tossed a $20 million award against a former jet company that secretly videotaped Michael Jackson and his attorneys during a 2003 flight.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Monday that the award was excessive and that Jeffrey Borer, former owner of the now-defunct XtraJet\, shouldn't have to pay it to attorneys Mark Geragos and Pat Harris, The Associated Press reported.

The three-judge panel sent the case back to the trial judge who ruled in favor of the attorneys in March.
Geragos, Harris and Jackson sued for invasion of privacy after being secretly videotaped when Jackson surrendered on charges of molestation.

The Supreme Court on Monday morning temporarily blocked a federal judge in San Francisco from showing on YouTube proceedings from a trial that will determine whether a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

The court's decision is not the final word; the stay sought by same-sex marriage opponents expires Wednesday. The court said that will permit justices "further consideration." The trial is scheduled to start Monday.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer was the only justice to object.

"I agree with the court that further consideration is warranted, and I am pleased that the stay is time-limited," Breyer wrote. But he said the court's standards for issuing a stay were not met because there is not a likelihood of "irreparable harm" if the proceedings were available on the Internet.

Two bay area couples are asking Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker to rule that same-sex marriage is a right embedded in the Constitution and that it was violated last year when California voters passed Proposition 8, a ballot measure confining matrimony to members of the opposite sex.

A federal appeals court gave notice Friday it likely would reject the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to sanction Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer applications.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suggested as much during oral arguments from the FCC and Comcast. The Philadelphia-based cable concern is appealing the agency’s 2008 decision ordering it to stop hampering the peer-to-peer service BitTorrent as a traffic-management practice.

The move was in response to complaints Comcast was sending fake signals to users of BitTorrent, a bandwidth-heavy protocol often used to pirate copyright content.

Attorney General Rob McKenna and Secretary of State Sam Reed say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court's decision that would give Washington state felons in prison and on community supervision the right to vote.

McKenna and Reed announced their decision Wednesday. The appeal has to be filed with the court by April, and the state will seek a stay on felony inmates' ability to vote until the case is resolved.

Tuesday's 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the 2000 ruling of a district judge in Spokane. The appeals court says Washington state's felon disenfranchisement law violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Rejecting Zacarias Moussaoui’s arguments, federal appeals court Monday upheld Moussaoui’s conviction and prison term.