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Recent suits of interest.

Features

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas decided that it lacked personal jurisdiction over comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, in a suit filed over a segment in which a Texas resident appeared. Busch v. Viacom International Inc., 3:06-CV-0493-L. The Daily Show broadcast a parody of a dietary drink that TV evangelist Pat Robertson promoted. The Daily Show segment included a clip from Robertson's show The 700 Club in which plaintiff Phillip Busch, a user of the dietary drink, shook Robertson's hand. Busch filed claiming defamation and misappropriation of image in the Daily Show piece.

The mobile-game industry can be lucrative. Mobile games ' which can be downloaded to cell phones and other mobile devices ' can be cheaper and easier to develop than games created for platforms like PCs or game consoles, where users expect higher production values. What also makes mobile games attractive to developers and entrepreneurs is the potential market of consumers who already carry and use cell phones ' estimated at 207.9 million nationwide and 2 billion worldwide. Mobile games present huge brand opportunities as well: Celebrities such as hotel heiress Paris Hilton, rapper 50 Cent, skateboarder Tony Hawk and poker champion Phil Hellmuth have each licensed their names and images to mobile games. Tom Cruise, notoriously shy of associating his name with videogames, lent his name exclusively to a Mission Impossible III mobile-phone game.

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Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

What you need to know.

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What's happening in this all-important area.

Features

The authority to concede liability derives from a defendant's inherent right not to contest claims made by a plaintiff. There has been a general reluctance to concede liability on the part of the defense bar, based as much on the inability to recognize what is to be gained by such an approach as on an unrealistic fear of what may be lost. However, conceding liability can provide a valuable opportunity to enhance one's credibility, as well as a vehicle to provide damage and expense control. In the appropriate case, conceding liability can be a particularly effective strategy, which tends to be underused. What are the risks and benefits of conceding liability? In which cases is it appropriate to employ the strategy? We address herein some of the practical aspects.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in March began reconsideration of its decision that held it was unconstitutional for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withhold experimental drugs from terminally ill patients. The order for rehearing en banc was issued in November 2006. The case pits dying, often desperate, patients against the FDA and its policies aimed at protecting the public from dangerous and unproven medications.