The Supreme Court ruled Monday that deals between pharmaceutical corporations and their generic drug competitors, which government officials say keep cheaper forms of medicine off the market, can be sometimes be illegal and therefore challenged by federal officials in court.

The Supreme Court rules that companies cannot patent parts of naturally-occurring human genes.

The Supreme Court struggled Monday with whether it should allow federal officials to challenge deals between pharmaceutical corporations and their generic drug competitors that the government says could keep cheaper forms of medicine off the American market for longer periods of time.

Federal regulators are pressing the Supreme Court to stop big pharmaceutical corporations from paying generic drug competitors to delay releasing their cheaper versions of brand-name drugs. They argue these deals deny American consumers, usually for years, steep price declines that can top 90 percent.

With the nation teetering on an economic "fiscal cliff," federal judges may soon force Congress to dedicate possibly millions of dollars to what some of those same judges must consider a worthy cause: their own salaries.

Justice Antonin Scalia said he hasn't had a "falling out" with Chief Justice John Roberts over the Supreme Court's landmark 5-4 decision validating much of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a man's children who were conceived through artificial insemination after his death cannot get Social Security survivor benefits.

Sharp questioning by the Supreme Court's conservative justices has cast serious doubt on the survival of the individual insurance requirement at the heart of President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul.