Remember the excruciating embarrassment that overwhelmed poor Judge William Ingrams, hearing the Intel-NEC microcode copyright infringement case when he discovered that an investment club he joined for social reasons turned out to have included a handful of Intel shares in its portfolio? You’d think it would be a pretty simple matter to decide that the engagingly unmercenary jurist should be admonished to pay more attention to the investments in which he is indirectly interested, and instructed to carry on hearing – but it has proved much too tough for Judge Samuel Conti: he couldn’t make up his mind and has sent the thorny problem back to the judicial assignment committee.