CA2 (10.23.04)

Four new ones so far today, although none are particularly ground-breaking. In Thai v. United States, the court denied as moot the petitioner's request to file a second or consecutive habeas petition; after supplemental briefing, the court determined that Thai's initial habeas petition did not count. The court, in coming to this conclusion, resolved an apparent question of first impression: "when a habeas petitioner voluntarily moves to withdraw a § 2255 petition and the district court grants the motion, under what circumstances should a later petition be considered successive for purposes of § 2255's gatekeeping requirements?"

In Playtex Prods. v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., the court affirmed a grant of summary judgment against plaintiff's trademark infringement and diluation claims. This appeal concerns Playtex's Wet Ones wipes and Georgia-Pacific's Moist-Ones. The court held that the two marks were sufficiently different to bar the trademark claims.

Next, in United States v. Singh, the court substantially affirmed the conviction of a doctor for health fraud and distribution of a controlled substance. The court reversed and remanded with respect to calculation of the loss amount for sentencing purposes, however.

Finally, for now, in Sprl v. Axtel, the court affirmed a denial of a motion to compel arbitration and a motion to enjoin litigation in Mexico between Axtel and its shareholder. How great is the name "Laif X Sprl," incidentally? Note that the late Judge Van Graafeiland was originally a member of the panel -- that the opinion was released two days after his death suggests to me that he was the holdout (either because he disagreed with the decision or because he simply hadn't signed on yet; either explanation is equally plausible, the case not being old at all).