quote:

Justice Elena Kagan cited the line in explaining why the court, in a 6-3 ruling, had declined to overrule a legal precedent more than a half century old concerning patent royalties.

The court decided in favor of Walt Disney Co's Marvel Entertainment LLC in its legal fight with Stephen Kimble and an associate, Robert Grabb, over royalties on a web-shooting toy called the Spider-Man Web Blaster.

The court can overturn its own precedents, Kagan said.

"What we can decide, we can undecide," Kagan wrote, but added "we should exercise that authority sparingly."

Kagan then offered the oft-quoted cautionary line from Spider-Man lore in which the superhero is counseled that "in this world, with great power there must also come - great responsibility."

Kimble had asked the court to overrule the precedent, which said royalty payments generally do not need to be made after a patent has expired as is the case with the Spider-Man Web Blaster. Marvel, which has paid Kimble more than $6 million over the years to use the patent in the toy, had argued that the precedent set in a 1964 Supreme Court ruling should stand.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion noting that the 1964 decision should be overturned because it was "not based on anything that can plausibly be regarded as an interpretation of the Patent Act."

The ruling was "based instead on an economic theory - and one that has been debunked," Alito added.

Fellow conservative justices John Roberts and Clarence Thomas were the other dissenters.

Kimble obtained a patent for his web-shooting glove in 1991, later assigning it to Marvel in return for a royalty fee.

After Kimble in 2008 claimed breach of contract, Marvel argued that the 1964 Supreme Court ruling in the case Brulotte v. Thys Co involving a harvesting machine meant it would not be required to pay the royalties once the patent expired in 2010.

Knight posted:

Blue Train posted:

dunno about black but he's always been gay