Broadcast Station Reminder: Quarterly Filings and Requirements:...
By July 10, 2014, all radio and television broadcast stations, both commercial and noncommercial, must prepare a list of important issues facing their communities of license, and the programs aired...
View ArticleCrowdfunding: What is it and Where is it Going?
On May 7, 2014, a group of four experts (Frank Williams, Four Bridges Capital; Gene Wright, Georgia Crowdfunding Association; Phil Shmerling, InCrowd Capital; and Zan Nicolli, Dickinson Wright)...
View ArticleHIPAA/HITECH Business Associate Agreements: The Home Stretch
The one-year transition rule expires on September 22, 2014. The final regulations under the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules as amended by HITECH, make several changes, including...
View ArticleGame On: U.S. Supreme Court Relaxes Standards for False Advertising Claims
If a competitor circulates false advertising about your products you can sue under federal law, but what do you do when the person making the false claim is not a competitor? Sue them anyhow....By:...
View ArticleCopyright Alert: ABC v. Aereo: What the Supreme Court Decided - And What It...
On June 25, 2014, a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court held that Aereo’s service that allows customers to view over-the-air TV broadcasts via the internet violated the public performance right under the...
View ArticleOCR Annual Report Highlights Breaches Of Unsecured Protected Health Information
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH") requires Covered Entities and Business Associates to provide notification of breaches of unsecured Protected Health...
View ArticleRuling Extends Trade Secret Protection to Ideas
Altavion v. KMSL extends trade secret protection to valuable design concepts even when those design ideas are shared during a negotiation. Implications - In Altavion v. KMSL, the California Court of...
View ArticleAereo’s Antenna Arrays and Streaming of Broadcast Programming to Individual...
Citing Aereo’s “overwhelming likeness to the cable companies targeted by the 1976 amendments”, the majority found that Aero is not just an equipment supplier and that it “performs” the broadcasted...
View ArticleUSPTO Issues Preliminary Examination Instructions Regarding Alice Corp. v....
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) wasted no time providing guidance to its examining corps regarding the recent Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Just one week...
View ArticleSupreme Court Rules That Aereo’s TV Transmissions Infringe Copyrights as an...
In a 6-3 decision earlier today, the United States Supreme Court held that Aereo infringes broadcasters’ copyrights by providing the means for subscribers to view programs through individually-assigned...
View ArticleFTC and DOJ Host Conditional Pricing Programs Workshop
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and United States Department of Justice (DOJ) hosted a workshop on June 23, 2014 discussing the law and economics of “conditional pricing” programs. Most panelists...
View ArticleWhat the Supreme Court's Aereo Ruling Might Mean for Cloud Storage Platforms
In the Supreme Court's Aereo ruling, at least one of the things not decided was whether a cloud storage platform, such as Dropbox or iCloud, would run afoul of the copyright laws’ protection of the...
View ArticleThe Redskins Decision: Much Ado About (Probably) Not Much
I’ve been having fun listening to commentators – most of whom appear to know little or nothing about trademark law – expound on last week’s decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel...
View ArticleCongress's ‘Regulatory Objectives’ for Copyright Law Prevail in Supreme...
In American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. et al. v. Aereo, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held today by a margin of 6 to 3 that an unlicensed online broadcast television retransmission service infringed...
View ArticleSupreme Court Solidifies Privacy Protections for Cellphone Data by Holding...
With the present Term nearing its end, the U.S. Supreme Court took a major step forward in unanimously extending individual protections from police intrusion into the realm of digital privacy. In a...
View ArticleOffer of Judgment Served Hours Before Motion for Class Certification Filed...
In Barr v. The Harvard Drug Grp., LLC, 13-62019, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79422 (S.D. Fla. June 11, 2014), the court found that an offer of judgment served via email mooted the plaintiff’s claim despite...
View ArticleCanada Targets Commercial Email; Crackdown Perilous to US Companies
After years of enduring a reputation as a haven for spammers, Canada has enacted one of the toughest anti-spam laws in the world. Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (“CASL”), which goes into effect on July 1,...
View ArticleBrewing Brewery Brawl: Busch Not Happy with NATTY
You know that beer that you would drink in a basement, but now that you acknowledge that you are actually an adult, you would not be caught dead buying in a liquor store or requesting at a bar or...
View ArticleSupreme Court Unanimously Rules That Police Officers Cannot Search the...
In Riley v. California, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits police officers from searching through the data on an arrested suspect's cell phone as an...
View ArticleFDA Issues Draft Guidance on Promotion on Internet and Social Media Platforms
On June 17, 2014, the FDA issued long-awaited draft guidance documents addressing two challenges related to use of social media to communicate about FDA regulated products: dissemination of information...
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