The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed a federal RICO claim that alleged the defendants took the basis for their TV program The Great American Road Trip from a TV show idea created by the plaintiffs.
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The Seventh Circuit's recent decision in Specialized Seating v. Greenwich Industries, L.P., highlights several important considerations that are often overlooked by counsel representing clients who claim trade dress rights in product designs. Paramount among those considerations is the effect that claims in a utility patent can have on the availability of trade dress protection.
The increased level of enforcement activity by the FDA has focused the attention of consumers and the plaintiffs' bar on the increased frequency with which physicians prescribe FDA-approved drugs and medical devices for unapproved uses. Plaintiffs' attorneys increasingly choose to name prescribing physicians in their products liability suits as co-defendants, pleading both medical malpractice and other associated tort claims against these physicians, and often premising such claims upon the decision to prescribe for a so-called "off-label" or unapproved use. Thus, the continuing expansion of off-label uses of drugs and devices has led to numerous potential legal minefields for the prescribing physicians.
A high-profile wrongful death case was recently decided for the second time in favor of a Miami couple whose child suffered severe brain damage during his birth at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, FL.
Measuring the extent of medical damages, for a medical malpractice claim as for any other type of negligence claim, is an important part of any case. Normally, when a defendant causes harm that sends a plaintiff to a hospital or doctor, three different measures may be relevant to determining the defendant's liability ' the amount the plaintiff herself has paid for medical care, the amount the plaintiff's health insurance has paid on her behalf, and the amount a health care provider has billed as its "usual and customary" charge.
