Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

ORDER AFFIRMING JUDGMENT OF THE DISTRICT COURT.
This is an action for patent infringement, involving the continuous production of large diameter rod stock from nylon, on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. The District Judge, the Honorable Talbot Smith, rendered a comprehensive opinion holding that the claims of patent asserted by plaintiff are invalid for lack of patentable invention and have not been infringed by defendant. The case has been presented to this court upon briefs and oral argument.
Upon consideration, we find no error in the judgment of the District Court. It is ordered that the judgment of the District Court be and hereby is affirmed upon, the basis of the opinion of the District. Judge reported in 220 F.Supp. 563.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: A