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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that singer Debra Laws' state right-of-publicity claim over the use of her voice in a Jennifer Lopez sound recording and music video was preempted by federal copyright law. <i>Laws v. Sony Music Entertainment Inc.</i>
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Tax-treatment and copyright-reversion issues are among the most complicated concerns songwriters and music publishers face. This article examines a recent change in federal tax law regarding the sale of musical compositions, as well as related tax and reversion issues.
It is unquestioned that technology is becoming more complex, building on what has come before. In 1965, Gordon Moore prophesized that the number of transistors on a chip would double about every 2 years. To put this in context, in 40 years, the number of transistors on a chip has risen from mere thousands to nearly 1 billion. <i>See www.intel.com/technology/silicon/mooreslaw/</i>. A corollary to Moore's law is that the price will necessarily decrease each generation, putting more computing power into consumers' hands at ever-lower costs. The technologies that allow more information to be packed into an ever-smaller space at lower costs are increasingly complex.
35 U.S.C. §101 defines processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter as the categories of inventions that can be the subject matter of a patent. 35 U.S.C. §100(b) defines the term 'process' to mean 'process, art, or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material.' Section 101 also requires that the subject matter sought to be patented be 'useful.'
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The landmark decision of the Supreme Court in <i>MercExchange LLC v. eBay</i>, 547 U.S. __ (2006), has left many inventors and patent owners disappointed, as the Supreme Court sided with eBay and set aside the prior decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ('CAFC'). A closer reading of the decision, however, seems to indicate a balanced approach that gave both sides something to brag about.
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Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
An observation can be made about the typical method through which mass pharmaceutical litigation begins. Initially, the plaintiff files a lawsuit and serves the manufacturer with written discovery requests, seeking information pertaining to adverse events, clinical trials, direct-to-consumer marketing, and the like. The manufacturer objects to each and every request and does not provide one document. The manufacturer then delays, and the plaintiff frets and finally a compromise is worked out whereby limited production will be obtained; attached to that production will be a manufacturer-imposed presumption of confidentiality. At the same time, while the manufacturer strives to keep secret the internal documents showing what it knew and when it knew it, it will issue a press release talking about the wonderful medicine, claiming it is being wrongfully sued and saying that it has never had a reason to think the medicine was unsafe.
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In January 2006, a federal court in Texas and a state court in New Jersey issued significant decisions contributing to the developing trend, which was triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in <i>Metro-North Commuter Railroad v. Buckley</i>, 521 U.S. 424 (1997), rejecting medical monitoring as a cause of action. In <i>Bund zur Untersttzung Radargesch'digter e. V., et al., v. Raytheon, Co.</i>, No. EP-04-CA-127-PRM, 2006 WL 267335 (W.D. Tex. Jan. 17, 2006), U.S. District Judge Philip R. Martinez predicted that the Texas Supreme Court would not recognize a cause of action for medical monitoring based primarily on that court's prior decision declining to recognize a claim for mental anguish in the absence of a physical injury. One week later, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee, in <i>Vitanza v. Wyeth, Inc.</i>, Case No. ATL-2093-04-MT (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. Jan. 24, 2006), dismissed a medical monitoring claim involving the prescription medication Prempro, ruling that the cause of action for medical monitoring previously recognized by the New Jersey Supreme Court is not available for plaintiffs asserting product liability or consumer fraud claims.
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You are defending a manufacturer in a pharmaceutical product liability action. The plaintiff has testified that she obtained a prescription from her doctor for your client's medication and filled it at a reputable, national chain pharmacy. The doctor's records confirm that the prescription was written and the pharmacy records confirm that it was filled with your client's product. Normally, that scenario would dispel any doubts concerning the adequacy of product identification and you would identify other fronts on which to defend.
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The Class Action Fairness Act ('CAFA') was enacted almost a year and a half ago, signed into law by President Bush on Feb. 18, 2005. 28 U.S.C. §1332(d)(2). CAFA was enacted to help control the 'explosion' in the number of class actions while still allowing the right of access to the courts. As stated by one of the act's proponents, Sen. Orin Hatch, during his keynote address to the American Bar Association conference on class actions, 'truly national class actions should not be heard in remote state courts with little tie to any of the parties involved.' CAFA attempts to rectify this situation by allowing national class actions to be heard in federal courts.
