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SAN FRANCISCO — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently set precedents defining gray areas of technology law, but none of the three judges announced Monday to preside over the Napster Inc. case was involved in those decisions. 

The court normally decides cases with three-judge panels picked each month at random. Since last year, judges other than the three Napster panelists have supported new technology despite concerns of copyright infringement, national security and Internet-access monopolies. 

Oral arguments in the Recording Industry Association of America’s case against Napster are scheduled Oct. 2 in San Francisco.  

The Napster judges, appointees from three presidential administrations, are to decide whether Napster’s music-sharing service contributes to copyright infringement and should be shut down. 

The Napster panelists are President Reagan appointee Robert R. Beezer, 72, of Seattle; President Clinton appointee Richard A. Paez, 53, of Pasadena; and President Carter appointee Mary M. Schroeder, 59, of Phoenix. The circuit covers nine western states. 

Napster, a Silicon Valley start-up, provides a wildly popular software allowing users to share music files, which they can download from each other’s computers for free. 

Experts were unsure whether the court will legitimize the revolutionary technology allowing millions to copy and trade digital files, including illegal copies of music and other copyrighted material, over the Internet. 

And court watchers were mixed on whether the circuit’s recent groundbreaking decisions on encryption, Internet access and reverse-engineering will help or hurt the recording industry’s case. 

“Everybody has an opinion on this, but there’s no way to really know,” said Eugene Volokh, a University of California, Los Angeles, Internet copyright professor. 

The U.S. Supreme Court this year also reversed nine of the circuit’s 10 cases it reviewed.