This week’s Commercial Roundup follows three days of all antitrust, all the time at the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s annual Spring Meeting in our nation’s capital. More than 3,700 government enforcers, private lawyers, judges, economists, econometricians, academics, students, and others assembled to talk about the recent past and future of antitrust in the U.S. and around the world.
The Roundup includes but one post about the Spring Meeting—BIG meets ABA—but it will give you a good sense of the combat that flickered into view amid the nerdy bonhomie. You can find other posts on the Spring Meeting here, here, and here.
Now, let’s get to the Roundup!
- Home sellers who paid a broker for an MLS listing may sue as a coast-to-coast class.
- Playing hardball with debtor didn’t maker lender guilty of tort.
- News network to face trial in libel case.
- Jury must find whether all 33 works or groupings of them have “independent economic value” under copyright-law test test for statutory damages.
- Vaping device patent survives obviousness, non-infringement, and prior public use challenges.
- Prior art that listed two remote codes didn’t make patent that required two methods of sending remote codes obvious.
- BIG meets ABA.
- AAI applauds FTC’s move to ban noncompetes, urges more study “to withstand judicial review.”
- Game controller patent defined “elongate member” well enough.
- It slices, it dices: Sherman Act Section 1 frees esports pros from Activision’s pay cap.