In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the constitutional rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but that such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.

President Bush was unhappy with the ruling. "We'll abide by the court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it," the president said during a press conference in Rome. "It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented."

Bush also said he would consider whether to seek new laws in light of the ruling "so we can safely say to the American people, 'We're doing everything we can to protect you.'"

It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but that such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.

The White House had no immediate comment on the ruling. White House press secretary Dana Perino, traveling with President Bush in Rome, said the administration was reviewing the opinion.

Anton Geiser's work as a guard meets the type of persecutory conduct banned under a 1953 federal law, the ruling said.

Geiser, 83, did not reveal his Nazi ties on his visa application, but he is not accused of lying about them. Files from the period have been lost and it is not clear what questions he was asked.

His lawyer, Adrian N. Roe, told the appeals court this year that guards not deemed war criminals were sometimes allowed in by the State Department. He complained that the Justice Department, in its efforts to expel former Nazis, was revisiting decisions made a half-century ago.

But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which focused on the language of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, said Geiser should have his U.S. citizenship revoked and be deported.

The justices have twice struck down the award to the family of a longtime smoker of Marlboros, made by Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA.

Oregon courts have repeatedly upheld the judgment. The most recent ruling, in January, followed a high court decision last year that said jurors may punish a defendant only for harm done to someone who is suing, not other smokers who could make similar claims.

The justices will consider only whether the Oregon Supreme Court in essence ignored the U.S. high court's ruling, not whether the amount of the judgment is constitutionally permissible.

The case before the court concerned arbitrary employment decisions that do not involve race, gender or other categories that are explicitly protected by federal law.

Individual public employees typically have a variety of protections from personnel actions, but invoking the equal protection clause of the Constitution is not one of them, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion.

The court's 6-3 decision in the case from Oregon was one of four opinions handed down Monday as the justices race to complete their work before their customary summer break begins in late June. Twenty-two cases remain to be decided and more opinions are expected Thursday.

Major cases still undecided include the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., and whether people convicted of raping children can be given the death penalty.

The unanimous decision came in a case involving the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The court ruled in favor of two firms alleging that manipulation by competitors had resulted in a disproportionate share of tens of thousands of tax liens going to the competitors.

Tax sales in Cook County enable the collection of unpaid property taxes, giving buyers of tax liens an opportunity to take over property if the owners don't pay up.

The issue for Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co. and BCS Services Inc. was whether they could sue even though they had not relied on allegedly fraudulent statements the defendants submitted to Cook County. The statements said that each tax buyer was truly independent from other tax buyers in the competitive bidding.

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said that nothing in the RICO law required Phoenix and BCS to show that they relied on alleged misrepresentations by a defendant.

Cook County requires that each buyer submit bids only in its name and not through any related entity.

Phoenix and BCS alleged that a number of related entities "packed the room" in tax sales by having relatives in two families bid for the same properties.

The unanimous decision Monday was helpful to customers of Intel Corp. and is the latest step by the justices to scale back the power of patent-holders.

The case revolves around a long-time Supreme Court doctrine that says the sale of an invention exhausts the patent-holder's right to control how the purchaser uses it.

In 1992, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., that hears patent cases from around the country began eroding the doctrine, ruling that patent-holders could attach post-sale conditions to patented products.

Justice Clarence Thomas reined in the appeals court, saying that "for over 150 years the Supreme Court has applied the doctrine of patent exhaustion" and that it applies in this case.

In the case before the Supreme Court, a South Korean company, LG Electronics Inc., licensed some of its patents to Intel Corp.

LG then sued some of Intel's customers for patent infringement, saying they owed royalties to LG because the customers combined Intel's microprocessors and chipsets with non-Intel products.

Patent laws can carry triple-damage awards when a court finds willful infringement.

The Intel customers are computer system manufacturers that include Taiwan-based Quanta Computer Inc. System manufacturers sell to industry brandnames such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Gateway Inc.

The Bush administration supported Intel's customers. It cited inconvenience, annoyance and inefficiency of multiple royalty payments being passed down the chain of distribution with no obvious stopping point.