For the fourth time in a little more than two months, the California Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence. Because the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on a second special circumstances charge of torture, the high court said it was forced to reverse the sentence.

Perkins Coie has announced it will open a heavily IP-focused office in Taipei, a little more than a decade after the firm closed an office there.

Patent holding company DataTreasury’s trial against U.S. Bancorp last spring resulted in both a huge win — a jury verdict of $27 million and a finding of willful infringement — and a big controversy, in the form of an inflammatory remark made by the company’s lead trial counsel, Nelson Roach.

London-based AstraZeneca PLC said Monday it has reached agreements to pay $198 million to settle a little more than half of the U.S. lawsuits that allege its antipsychotic drug Seroquel caused diabetes and other harm. AstraZeneca said the agreements cover roughly 17,500 claimants, out of the remaining 26,100 plaintiffs who have brought product liability lawsuits.

If Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is looking for a little more ammunition to shoot down California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, one of his Massachusetts colleagues has given him some. U.S