If you love or hate nekkid pictures on a computer screen, you may want to read the Ninth Circuit’s opinion today in Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 06-55405 (9th Cir. May 16, 2007). For the indifferent among you, Blawgletter will supply a synopsis.
Perfect 10 makes pictures of "nude models" available on
Don’t think that Blawgletter doesn’t remember that weeks ago we pronounced the current occupant of the U.S. Attorney General’s office legally dead — after he rejected our advice for testifying before the Senate. So how can Fredo get into more trouble?
Blawgletter rejoices that you asked the question. It means that you’ve honored us with
The Seventh Circuit today accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of "grinding down a corporation" because "the agency (or its senior staff) is in a snit" over the "firm’s refusal to kowtow" to it. The language resulted from the SEC’s decision to classify the outfit (correctly) as an "investment company" but its refusal (which the
The Sixth Circuit today ordered a district court to cut a jury’s punitive damages award to achieve a one-to-one ratio to the compensatory damages. The jury awarded an elderly widow $400,000 in actuals plus $2,628,600 in punitives against a bank for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The district court, after an initial appeal and
Half-round veneer slicing.
How does one cut wood veneer from a log? With the half-round method, one slices the former tree into two "flitches", uses "dogs" to attach a flitch to a "staylog", and rotates the flitch on the staylog while a veneer knife slices off long, thin sheets of wood.
You probably already knew
The Second Circuit today overturned summary judgment on claims to recover $69 million under an oral agreement. The decision turned on whether eight promissory notes qualified as "securities" under New York’s version of the Uniform Commercial Code. The New York Court of Appeals held that they did. Because the New York U.C.C. abolishes the statute
As we wait for the Federal Circuit to kill Vonage or revive it, Blawgletter noted that the company reported better results for its first quarter 2007. Its press release notes that it added 166,000 subscribers (for a 2.4 million total) and lost fewer millions than it did in the same period last year.
And Vonage
In patent law lingo, an "interference" pits two patents covering the same invention against each other. The prize consists in getting the earlier "priority" date so that Patent A trumps Patent B.
In Henkel Corp. v. Procter & Gamble Co., No 06-1542 (Fed. Cir. May 11, 2007), the court reviewed a decision by the
The Ninth Circuit agreed today with 10 of its sister circuits on the question of whether mere "inquiry notice" of possible fraud starts the statute of limitations period running for purposes of a securities fraud claim: It does. Betz v. Trainer Wortham & Co., Inc., No. 05-15704 (9th Cir. May 11, 2007).
But the
A rotary clinker kiln.
The Fifth Circuit today upheld a district court’s construction of a business interruption policy against the insurer, holding that ambiguity in policy language about how to calculate the deductible still indeed favors the policy holder. The dispute arose from damage to a kiln that grinds "clinker" — a key ingredient of