Abstract ideas
Section 101 of the Patent Act allows patents on "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof". 35 U.S.C. 101. But, the Supreme Court has held, it does not make laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas patentable. Ass'n for Molecular Pathology
Presuming harm
For a long time, federal courts presumed that misuse of someone's intellectual property — things like patents, copyrights, and trademarks — would cause the owner "irreparable harm". The bad acts, the courts believed, would ipso facto injure the IP owner in ways that mere money could not fix.
Change in the air
But
You have a special treat today.
Hollis Salzman and Meegan F. Hollywood at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. in New York have written a timely Guest Post on an important and exotic antitrust topic — monopsony.
Ms. Salzman serves as Co-Chair of Robins Kaplan's Antitrust and Trade Regulation Group and as co-lead counsel in blockbuster antitrust
A Question of Efficiency
Will quick review of a final judgment in just one of many cases that make up a large multi-district litigation bog the MDL process down — or make it work better?
Defense lawyers insist that consolidation of cases before a single district judge (by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation) changes
Get ready for the Supreme Court to resolve a question that has divided courts of appeals for years:
Whether and in what circumstances is the dismissal of an action that has been consolidated with other suits immediately appealable?
If that doesn't sound sexy enough for you, consider that the issue arises in massive litigation over
A June 25th ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for workers to bring claims under the Employee Retirement Income Secuirity Act of 1974 against ERISA plan fiduciaries who imprudently allow or require the employees to invest in their employers' stock. But the window of liability for imprudent fiduciaries might not last very long
No more over-the-air TV on your laptop?
The Supreme Court today struck a mighty blow against Internet television.
Firms that beam television programs to Internet users for a fee now face staggering liability for copyright infringement.
The 6-3 Court held that Aereo infringed the copyrights of content owners by enabling subscribers to select the channels
Broad patents
You could get really rich if you had a patent on something like "a device that can make and receive wireless phone calls". That would cover every wireless phone, dumb and smart, that ever existed. It would include the satchel phone that Blawgletter's friend Darrell Gest carried around in his ratty pickup back
Billions in bonds
You have a $2.5 billion judgment in a U.S. court against Argentina on bonds it defaulted on, but you have a problem. You can't find assets in the U.S. to satisfy the judgment. The pesky Argentines keep all of their seizable valuables overseas.
Can you get help from the U.S. court?
The U.S.
If you need to sue somebody for stealing your customers with false advertising, don't worry about a conflict between two federal statutes — the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Lanham Act. No conflict exists, the Supreme Court held today.
To understand why, let us tell you . . .
. . . a