Task: songer_direct2

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.

PER CURIAM.
There is nothing in the design patent that indicates an artistic development of any kind, or any ingenuity. The mechanical patent is no better. Plenty of prior art has been submitted which, if not anticipatory, is sufficient to deprive the plaintiffs of any right to claim that they have produced anything beyond the capacity of the most routine mechanic who chose to feed his marbles from the bottom rather than the top of the chick.
As for the claim of unfair competition, the plaintiffs’ chickens seem to have acquired no secondary meaning as to source, and there was no proof of palming off. The period between the defendants’ merchandising its copies of the plaintiffs’ chickens, and the time when plaintiffs placed them on the market was only about four or five months. There was no advertising justifying a claim that the defendants’ copies were believed to emanate from the plaintiffs or indicating confusion with the latter’s goods. Affidavits from interested sources ought not to support a monopoly based on a theory of unfair competition within such a short time after the plaintiffs’ chicks appeared on the market. Without substantial proof of secondary meaning there is no likelihood the purchasing public cared anything about the source of the goods. This was clearly no case for a preliminary injunction.
The order for a preliminary injunction is accordingly reversed.
In respect to the motion by the defendants to restrain the plaintiffs’ threats, they apparently related to a different product, to wit, a goose and not a chicken. On the record before us the order denying the defendants’ motion is affirmed without prejudice to the renewal of the motion in the District Court if the plaintiffs should hereafter issue any improper threats to defendants or its customers. Mandate to issue forthwith.

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

Answer: C