Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey might have lent some serious star power to subscription-based satellite-radio networks XM and Sirius, but that doesn't mean the fledgling medium is ready for prime time. This year, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. have to renegotiate their royalty agreements with record labels. Not only is the music industry intent on raising the licensing fees, it wants to stop the introduction of new satellite radio receivers that work more like an iPod than a radio.

After almost 15 years of admittedly dodging the issue, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in <i>Digital Control Incorporated v. Charles Machine Works</i>, ___ F.3d ___, 2006 WL 288075 (Fed. Cir., Feb. 8, 2006), finally determined that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Rule 56, as amended in 1992, does not supplement or replace existing case law in determining the threshold of materiality. The court stated that '[a]lthough we have affirmed findings of materiality based upon the new Rule 56, we have declined to address whether the Rule 56 standard replaced the old 'reasonable examiner' standard.' <i>Id.</i> at *4. Instead, the court found the Rule 56 standard merely 'provides an additional test of materiality' to the existing 'but for,' 'but it may have,' and 'reasonable examiner' tests.

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A well-intentioned journalist, who is not a physician, recently wrote an article in <i>The New York Times</i> asking why medical mistakes occur. There, the author advanced a theory that if doctors were better paid, there would be higher quality of care, and fewer misdiagnoses. This theory assumes that doctors are mainly motivated by money, which, in this author's opinion, is not the primary impetus for a doctor, or any other medical practitioner, to do the job right. The law defines medical negligence simply: the failure to do what a reasonably prudent practitioner would do in the same or similar circumstances. Medical negligence, in a legal sense, does not differ from other forms of negligence: When a person ' doctor or layman ' departs from the accepted standard of care, that is negligent conduct. Numerically, this vagary translates to mean that a practitioner has not deviated from the applicable standard of care if he or she does 'that which 51% of practitioners would do.'

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The tort of induced patent infringement codified in 35 U.S.C. '271(b) is a powerful tool that patent owners can use when it is not feasible or practical to sue a direct infringer. In order to prove this claim, a patent owner must establish that 1) its claim is directly infringed by a third party, 2) that the defendant induced that third party to infringe, and 3) that the defendant possessed intent to encourage that party to infringe.

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On Jan. 17, the U.S Supreme Court announced its decision in <i>Gonzalez v. Oregon</i>, upholding Oregon's state law on so-called 'physician-assisted suicide.' The Supreme Court decision rejected an effort by the Justice Department to punish physicians who assist terminally ill patients with prescriptions of lethal doses of controlled medications pursuant to the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ODWDA). The case had been widely followed as it proceeded through the federal court system, and is now expected to invite similar legislation as other states consider enacting assisted-death laws. In this article, we consider the state and federal legislation that was placed at loggerheads by an administrative directive of the Attorney General of the United States; the decisions of the lower federal courts presented with the issue; and the ultimate disposition of the matter by the Supreme Court.

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Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.

At its Feb. 15, 2006 Board Meeting, the Financial Accounting Standards Board affirmed decisions on the remaining issues concerning the proposed FASB Staff Position FAS 13-a, 'Accounting for a Change or Projected Change in the Timing of Cash Flows Relating to Income Taxes Generated by a Leveraged Lease.' These issues had been discussed at the Board's Feb. 8 educational meeting.