(The Center Square) – With seven days available for appeal, a federal judge on Monday evening ordered the North Carolina State Board of Elections to certify Allison Riggs the winner over Jefferson Griffin in the election for eight years in Seat 6 of the state Supreme Court

Chief Justice Richard Myers, presiding in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division, said the state board “shall not take any action in furtherance of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court’s orders.” Griffin, the Republican challenger and a justice on the state’s appellate court, was denied motions for injunctive relief.

This is the nation’s last unresolved election, one that drew in $2.3 million in campaign donations. The filing says, “The court’s order is stayed for 7 days, so that Judge Griffin may pursue an appeal if he so chooses.” At the time of ruling, Monday marked 182 days since Election Day.

On Election Night, with 2,658 precincts reporting, Griffin led Riggs by 9,851 votes of 5,540,090 cast. Provisional and absentee ballots that qualified were added to the totals since, swinging the race by 10,585 votes.

Riggs has been poised for a 734-vote win. Griffin protested about 65,000 ballots on multiple counts, and the state board rejected all of them. Most were by 3-2 party-line votes.

Board of elections decisions and court rulings – Wake County Superior Court, state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, and 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – had pared that initial number down to somewhere between 1,675 and 5,700 for this decision by Myers.

The protests the state board denied included registration records of voters, such as lack of providing either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

Other ballots protested and denied by the state board included voters overseas who have never lived in the United States, and for lack of photo identification provided with military and overseas voters. Myers’ ruling is the final blow to these protests.

Griffin is trying to become the sixth Republican in a row to win a seat on the state’s Supreme Court. Democrats held a 6-1 edge going into the 2020 election and lost three state Supreme Court races, reducing their advantage to 4-3. In 2022, Republicans won both races to gain their 5-2 majority.

The Supreme Court bench has historically been both nonpartisan and partisan. The General Assembly, under majority Democrats, changed the bench to nonpartisan for the 2004 election cycle; Republicans, in majority, changed it back after the 2016 election cycle.

Riggs has been recused from all actions involving the state Supreme Court. She remains seated until the election is resolved. Griffin is a judge on the state Court of Appeals and has been recused from all actions there as well.

Riggs is trying to win her first judicial election and as an incumbent no less, appointed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper nine months after he had appointed her to the Court of Appeals following her 14-year stint with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

Griffin earned his eight-year seat on the appellate bench with a 2020 win over Democrat Chris Brook. He had lost two years earlier to Toby Hampson in a three-way race that included two Republicans.

(The Center Square) – Support for “arguably the world’s most successful research park” through federal legislation encouraging investments in intellectual property and American global technology leadership is being led in part by North Carolinians of both parties in Congress.

Research Triangle Park, largest sprawling development of its kind across 7,000 acres with more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers, would stand to benefit greatly from the newest bicameral attempt to pass the PREVAIL Act. Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of the Tarheel State is alongside bill author Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, in the upper chamber and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., is partnered with Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, in the House.

“It’s critical that we work across party lines to ensure the people who are driving our country’s innovation have the tools they need to thrive,” Ross said. “When we support innovators, we bolster American competitiveness and the American economy.”

The acronym is for Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership.

The legislation would update and improve the patent system to protect essential property rights, she said. Tillis calls them commonsense changes.

“To maintain the United States’ position as the global leader in technology and innovation, we must work with inventors – large and small – to improve and streamline our patent system,” Tillis said. “We must restore faith and confidence in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.”

Before the grand idea of RTP credited to Gov. Luther Hodges, North Carolina was No. 47 of 48 states in 1950 in per capita income. University graduates regularly left for other locales and tobacco, textiles and the furniture industry drove the economic engine.

Three-quarters of a century later, North Carolina is No. 34 – inclusive of behind the District of Columbia – though growing to the ninth largest population at about 11 million and ranking top five for states drawing the most people by moves. Agriculture remains the No. 1 industry with growth in biotechnology, aerospace, transportation and information technology making great strides.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board is within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Congressional supporters say the process has evolved into a “forum where patent claims are consistently invalidated through proceedings that are duplicative of – not an alternative to – the federal district court.”

A release says reformation includes:

• Require standing for Patent Trial and Appeal Board challengers and limit repeated petitions challenging the same patent.

• Harmonize Patent Trial and Appeal Board claim construction and burden of proof with federal district court.

• End duplicative patent challenges by requiring a party to choose between making its validity challenges before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or in district court.

• Increase transparency by prohibiting the Patent and Trademark Office director from influencing Patent Trial and Appeal Board panel decisions.

Supporters include the Council for Innovation Promotion, known also as C4IP; the Biotechnology Innovation Organization; and the Innovation Alliance.

In the 118thh Congress, the Senate version of the PREVAIL Act was introduced in July 2023 and died Dec. 2 just before end of session, having come through the Judiciary Committee and been placed on the Legislative Calendar under General Orders. The House version was introduced in June 2023 and died the same day in the Judiciary Committee.