This guest post comes to the STLR Blog from CLS Lecturer-in-Law Nathan A. Schachtman. He blogs regularly at http://schachtmanlaw.com/blog/. This post was originally published at that site and is available here. Next year, the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision will turn 20. The decision, in interpreting Federal Rule of Evidence 702, dramatically changed the landscape of expert witness [...]
This post discusses the use of tracer testing for gasoline station construction in California and argues that, while the regulatory regime is excessive given that its original justification no longer exists, mandating use of tracer testing technology makes sense as long as we are under the current regulatory standards for “product-tight.” As a laborer in [...]
On March 20, the Supreme Court handed down their unanimous decision in the case of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. The Court struck down Prometheus’s patents stating that, regardless of the language in the claims, they were effectively patents on a law of nature which is not allowed. The Court added that any [...]
With the increased use of cloud storage new questions have arisen related to the privacy and confidentiality of files stored remotely. Although file storage on remote servers is not a new creation, many of the legal doctrines surrounding privacy and confidentiality of files were created without use of the cloud in mind and have not [...]
USING TECHNOLOGY TO VISUALIZE CHANGE As part of its project curriculum, Columbia Law School’s Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic engages in an ongoing collaboration with NYC’s Project FAIR to innovate and implement greater access to legal help and resources for the low-income and underrepresented members of the New York City community. Project FAIR Project [...]
Apple sues Samsung for patent infringement. In response, Samsung files international countersuits on patents of its own. Courts around the world grant preliminary injunctions to each company on a number of their claims, while United States and European Union government agencies investigate allegations of antitrust violations. What’s going on here? Let’s start with the shiny [...]
Who has the right to a patent for an invention? Should it be the first inventor to file or the first inventor to invent? The first-to-file system grants the right to a patent to the first inventor to file a patent application, regardless of the date of invention. On the other hand, the first-to-invent system [...]
DOJ approves acquisition of Nortel patent portfolio by the Rockstar Bidco Consortium. Rockstar purchased the patent portfolio last year and the coalition which includes Microsoft, Apple, EMC, RIM, Ericsson and Sony is now free to pursue licensing agreements with companies it believes are using the technology covered by the Nortel patents. Apple claims that Samsung [...]
YAHOO! IS ON THE HUNT DURING RESTRUCTURING: Yahoo! Inc. has threatened to sue popular social networking company Facebook for allegedly infringing on Yahoo’s patent rights. Yahoo has not publicly announced which patents it believes are infringed but are asking for Facebook to either pay licensing fees or risk a lawsuit. This news comes on the [...]
Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal and Volokh Conspiracy reported that the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently decided that forcing a suspect to decrypt and provide a hard drive when the government did not already know what it contained violates the suspect’s Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. While most of the Court’s [...]