The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a major First Amendment ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, holding that Colorado’s conversion-therapy law, as applied to a licensed counselor’s talk therapy with minors, regulates speech based on viewpoint and that the lower courts did not apply the required level of constitutional scrutiny. The decision is likely to reshape ongoing litigation over state regulation of licensed professionals and could prompt renewed challenges to similar laws across the country.

The case was brought by counselor Kaley Chiles, who argued that Colorado’s law barred her from engaging in voluntary, client-directed conversations about sexuality and gender identity when those conversations sought outcomes the state disfavored. In siding with Chiles, the Court rejected the idea that the speech at issue could be treated as mere professional conduct subject to lighter review. Instead, the Court emphasized that when a law targets what a speaker may say to a client based on the perspective expressed, courts must take a far harder look under the First Amendment.

For practitioners tracking the case, the Supreme Court docket is available here: Kaley Chiles, Petitioner v. Patty Salazar, et al.. The underlying Tenth Circuit appeal, which upheld the law before the Supreme Court stepped in, can be found here: Chiles v. Salazar, et al.

The ruling matters well beyond the counseling context. States have long argued that they possess broad authority to regulate licensed professions, including through limits on what professionals may say in treatment settings. The Court’s decision signals that such regulations cannot avoid meaningful First Amendment review simply by being framed as occupational rules. That is a significant development for healthcare providers, licensing boards, educational institutions, and employers operating in heavily regulated fields.

For litigators, the opinion provides a stronger framework for challenging professional-speech restrictions, especially where a statute appears to permit one side of a sensitive discussion while prohibiting the other. For in-house counsel and compliance teams, the case raises immediate questions about whether existing policies, training materials, disciplinary protocols, and state-law compliance programs need to be revisited in light of heightened constitutional risk.

Expect this decision to become a leading precedent in future disputes involving therapist speech, medical counseling, and other professional-client communications. It also all but guarantees a new wave of challenges to similar state laws, with lower courts now under clear instruction to apply more exacting First Amendment scrutiny.

The U.S. Supreme Court has wiped away a Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld a copyright verdict against Grande Communications Networks, sending the case back for reconsideration in light of the Court’s recent decision narrowing when internet service providers can be held liable for subscribers’ piracy. The move does not end the dispute, but it is an important reset in one of the closely watched lines of cases testing secondary copyright liability against broadband providers.

In practical terms, the justices granted, vacated, and remanded the case, directing the Fifth Circuit to take another look under a new liability framework. That matters because copyright plaintiffs have spent years pursuing ISPs on theories that they knowingly profited from or failed to meaningfully stop repeat infringers on their networks. A narrower Supreme Court standard could make those claims harder to prove, especially where the record shows generalized awareness of infringement rather than more direct evidence of culpable participation.

The Grande matter has been closely followed as part of the broader wave of music industry suits against access providers. The Supreme Court’s intervention now raises the possibility that damages awards and plaintiff-friendly appellate rulings in that space may be less secure than they appeared just months ago. For parties litigating these cases, the Fifth Circuit’s next opinion could become an important guidepost on what kinds of notice, internal enforcement practices, and subscriber-termination evidence are enough to support contributory or other secondary liability theories.

For litigators, the remand is a reminder that appellate strategy in copyright cases involving technology intermediaries remains highly fluid. Cases that once looked like straightforward applications of established contributory infringement principles may now turn on finer distinctions about intent, causation, and the degree of connection between an ISP’s service and user misconduct. Defense counsel will likely press for renewed scrutiny of jury instructions, sufficiency of the evidence, and damages theories. Plaintiffs, meanwhile, will be looking for ways to fit ISP conduct within the narrower framework endorsed by the Supreme Court.

For in-house counsel and compliance teams at telecom and internet companies, the decision underscores the value of documenting repeat-infringer policies, DMCA-related workflows, escalation procedures, and customer-account enforcement decisions. Even if the liability standard is tightening, rights-holder notices and internal responses will remain central evidence in future suits.

The Supreme Court’s action in the Grande Communications copyright dispute will be worth watching not just for the parties, but for what it says about the future exposure of service providers nationwide. The Fifth Circuit’s reconsideration could help define the next chapter of ISP copyright litigation.

Toyota Motor Corporation has filed a new inter partes review proceeding at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening what could become a closely watched dispute for companies managing automotive and mobility-related patent portfolios. The petition, docketed as IPR2026-00333 and filed on April 7, 2026, signals Toyota’s effort to challenge the validity of an issued U.S. patent through the PTAB’s administrative review process.

At this early stage, the case caption identifies Toyota Motor Corporation as the petitioner, but the publicly available docket entry does not yet provide the full details practitioners will want most, including the patent number at issue, the named patent owner, and the specific prior-art combinations and statutory grounds asserted in the petition. Those details typically emerge from the petition itself and subsequent PTAB docket activity, including mandatory notices, patent owner preliminary responses, and any institution decision.

Even without the full merits record, this filing is worth monitoring. For in-house IP counsel and outside patent litigators, a newly filed IPR often marks the beginning of a broader validity and enforcement strategy. If the challenged patent is being asserted in district court or is viewed as a strategic obstacle in a key technology area, the petition may offer an early look at how Toyota intends to frame the prior art, propose claim constructions, and deploy expert testimony. PTAB filings can also reveal whether the petitioner is pressing anticipation grounds under 35 U.S.C. § 102, obviousness grounds under 35 U.S.C. § 103, or both.

Patent practitioners should also watch for procedural developments that frequently shape outcomes as much as the prior art itself. Issues such as discretionary denial, real-party-in-interest disclosures, parallel litigation status, and the Board’s treatment of any proposed claim constructions can quickly become central. If the patent owner seeks to distinguish the art through a preliminary response or later motion to amend, the case may provide useful guidance on how the Board is handling technology-specific arguments and evidentiary disputes in 2026.

For automotive, connected vehicle, and advanced systems portfolios in particular, PTAB challenges remain an important risk-management tool. A filing by a company like Toyota may be especially significant if it reflects broader industry pressure on patents covering vehicle software, sensing, control systems, communications, or other core platform technologies.

As the docket develops, practitioners will want to track the challenged claims, asserted prior art, institution briefing, and any overlap with parallel proceedings. View full case on Docket Alarm.