Throughout the twentieth century courts interpreted the Espionage Act of 1917 to criminalize leaking classified information, but consciously refused to extend the Act to prohibit press institutions from subsequently publishing leaked information. While the United States government has a significant interest in preventing dissemination of sensitive information, the courts allow news organizations to claim First …
Righthaven, a recently created company, has filed hundreds of copyright infringement claims against blogs and other small Web sites for posting content from copyrighted news articles online. These claims—filed without any cease and desist letters to warn potential infringers—demand not only high monetary damages, but also forfeiture of the infringers’ domain names. Focusing on the claims against Web sites that …
Federal court dockets are flooded with cases of patent infringement claims seeking substantial damages. Parties defending against these claims often argue the patent being asserted is invalid and should not have been issued. The case of i4i v. Microsoft is an excellent example of how evidentiary principles for proving damages and patent validity can affect …
As the health care reform encourages more hospitals and physician networks to adopt electronic health record systems and more regional networks to develop, the federal and state governments will have the difficult task of safeguarding patients’ records and confidences. While the public health benefits of electronic health record systems are plentiful, concerns of privacy and …
Progressive biomedical research is the key to developing new and effective treatments for many of the diseases and conditions that afflict our society. The scientific community is in agreement that human embryonic stem cell research is a field that holds great promise. The recent federal district court opinion in Sherley v. Sebelius threatens to derail …
Modern technologies, including digital cameras and mediasharing, Web sites have made it possible for anyone to upload anything at any time and rapidly transmit this content to a worldwide audience. This digital environment fosters the creation of instant Internet celebrities via viral videos. The stars of these videos, such as “Bed Intruder’”s Antoine Dodson, are …
This article examines the recent Second Circuit decision of Tiffany v. eBay and the effect it has on the nominative fair use doctrine. The Second Circuit was the first circuit to consider the doctrine of nominative fair use in the online marketplace. However, the Second Circuit failed to expressly recognize the doctrine, likely due in …
Patent protection has evolved since the inception of the Federal Circuit in 1982. Mandated to unify the fractured application of the patent laws, the Federal Circuit initially set out to reinforce the protections guaranteed to patented inventions. For the first couple of decades the Federal Circuit succeeded in strengthening the patent system. Recently however there …
At this time, it is not in the best interest of the United States to adopt, join, or participate in any international treaty resembling a cyberspace extension of the existing “conventional” international laws of warfare. With the activation of the United States Cyber Command, the United States has begun to take the necessary steps to …
This Recent Development discusses the framework for electronic search that was laid out by the Ninth Circuit in U.S. v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. Though the Ninth Circuit’s framework has positive elements, the framework is fatally flawed because it does not account for the rapid evolution of computing technologies and does not account for recent …
