On Mar. 16, 2017, the New York Times and its reporter Charlie Savage brought this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

On Mar. 16, 2017, the New York Times and its reporter Charlie Savage brought this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Plaintiffs sought disclosure of agency records by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a component of DOJ which reviews all Executive Orders for form and legality and reviews legal questions raised by other parts of the executive branch.

Specifically, plaintiffs sought the disclosure of records related toTwo of the nation's leading civil liberties organizations and a new organization dedicated to the abolition of software patents have all filed amicus briefs in a patent case that could give the courts an opportunity to revisit the issue of software and business method patents. The case involves an application for a patent that would cover "a method for managing the consumption risk costs of a commodity" through a series of financial transactions. Not surprisingly, the Patent Office rejected the application on the grounds that purely abstract ideas are not patentable.

The applicant, Bernard Bilski, the CEO of a small firm called WeatherWise, appealed the patent office's decision. Last fall, the case was heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has jurisdiction over patent