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In last month's issue, we discussed the fact that the New York high court upheld a law requiring health plans to offer birth control. We discussed how non-believers are affected, and outlined defence to legislature. This month's article concludes the discussion.
Before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its recent decisions in the Kentucky River cases, union leaders and activists predicted dire consequences ' potentially stripping millions of workers, especially in the healthcare industry, of their rights to join a union. Unions, which are trying to attract more employees to their ranks, staged rallies and other events to draw attention to these cases. But the decisions did not dramatically redraw the lines for determining which workers are considered supervisors and which are not. Instead, they provided guidance that will be helpful to employers and unions alike in determining the status of workers whose classification falls into the gray area between supervisor and employee. The analysis remains highly fact-specific and appears unlikely to create the dramatic effects predicted.
The decision by the Federal Circuit in <i>Phillips v. AWH Corp.</i>, 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) in July 2005 reaffirmed and amplified many of the court's prior decisions addressing various aspects of patent claim construction. In particular, it emphasized the critical role of the specification in determining what the claim means and stated that the specification 'is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.' While the specification provides a number of sign posts or guides to interpreting a claim, one of the most important considerations is whether and how the patentee may have limited the invention to certain embodiments or may have distinguished the invention from prior inventions. It is important, therefore, for both patent prosecutors and litigators to understand how the Federal Circuit has approached the issue of limiting claims in a post-<i>Phillips</i> world based on the embodiments disclosed in the specification.
Features
Some inventions are easily characterized as a pure process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter and lend themselves to a single independent claim and a simple set of dependent claims. Many inventions, however, involve two or more of the statutory categories of subject matter, and require several independent claims, often creatively drafted, with mapped sets of dependent claims for complete coverage. Can a claim that straddles the line between the statutory categories of subject matter or that does not technically distinguish the invention from other claims be found invalid as an improperly drafted claim?
Recent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
Features
Recent cases in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
Companies that made and sold automotive friction materials (brakes and clutches) have invoked <i>Daubert</i> (or <i>Frey</i>) in attempts to preclude plaintiffs' evidence that the asbestos, once used in such products, contributes to causing disease. <i>See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.</i>, 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993). These defendants rely upon what they characterize as undisputed epidemiological evidence, purportedly showing that there is no significant increased risk associated with exposure to friction products. Their position is that such epidemiology is conclusive and that, without contrary epidemiology showing an increased risk, plaintiffs' causation evidence cannot pass muster under <i>Daubert</i>.