Practice Tip: The Learned Intermediary Doctrine
July 31, 2008
The court's refusal in <i>Johnson & Johnson v. Karl</i>, to recognize the learned intermediary doctrine and rejection of it wholesale lacks a sound basis. It is a legal aberration that warrants a prompt legislative response to codify the learned intermediary doctrine in West Virginia.
IS DIVERSITY A PREFERENCE OR A VALUE ADDED?
July 30, 2008
IS DIVERSITY A PREFERENCE OR A VALUE ADDED? AS someone who has operated extensively on both the buyer and seller sides of the legal profession, I'm naturally prone to preaching the "understanding your client" doctrine as the key best practice for all marketing and business development efforts. While I've taken some pains, in this publication and elsewhere,to define what "understanding your client" actually means, it is important to remind ourselves that the process of getting…
IP News
July 30, 2008
Recent developments you need to know.
<i>adidas v. Payless</i>
July 30, 2008
After almost seven years since inception, the lawsuit by adidas against Payless ShoeSource, Inc. ended at the trial level with a jury verdict against Payless in the amount of $305 million. Payless was found guilty of willful federal trademark and trade dress infringement, trademark and trade dress dilution, and state-law unfair and deceptive trade practices as a result of its sale of footwear bearing confusingly similar imitations of adidas's famous Three-Stripe Mark and Superstar Trade Dress.
News Briefs
July 30, 2008
The latest news from the franchising world.
<i>Quanta Computer, Inc., et al. v. LG Electronics, Inc.</i>
July 30, 2008
In <i>Quanta Computer</i>, many observers believed that the Court would address whether, and to what extent, a party can contractually restrict application of the patent exhaustion doctrine, under which patent rights covering a product are extinguished when the product is sold without restriction. Instead, the Court's decision in <i>Quanta</i> appears to be relatively narrow, confirming that the sale of unpatented components can exhaust a system patent that is substantially, but not completely, embodied by those components, but leaving open the broader question of whether parties can contractually limit application of the patent exhaustion doctrine to the detriment of downstream good faith purchasers.