BTLJ Blog

In October, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated a European Commission ruling from 2000 and held that the “Safe Harbor Privacy Principles” were insufficient in providing Europeans their privacy rights under EU law. Leading up to this decision, the “Safe Harbor Privacy Principles” had been exploited to ...

By: Jaideep Reddy On September 14, 2015, the Ninth Circuit in Lenz v. Universal Music laid down the legal standard that copyright holders must meet before issuing takedown notices. Given the scale of online video generation and consumption, this is significant for content generators and copyright holders. Frivolous takedown notices ...

On October 22, 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a proposal recommending the enforcement of current aircraft registration laws on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), commonly known as drones. The proposal comes at a time when the public, with its growing acceptance of drones, is pressuring the FAA to relax ...

Reverse payment settlements exist at the intersection among antitrust, patent and healthcare laws. Also known as pay-for-delay agreements, these occur when a patent holder agrees to pay a potential patent infringer to settle litigation and delay its entrance to the market. The payment is called a reverse one because, in the ...

The 2004 decision in Center for Democracy and Technology v. Pappert sheds light on the complications surrounding the use of technology to reduce the consumption of child pornography today. Government filtering as a mechanism to combat child pornography In 2003, the plaintiffs in Pappert – the Center for Democracy and ...

By: Jaideep Reddy “These days a developer will do a Google search, find five open-source products that fit his[/her] need and the next thing you know one of them is in a product.” – Phil Robb. Because open source code presents such a valuable resource for programmers, for-profit companies regularly ...

On October 16, the Second Circuit issued its decision in Authors Guild v. Google, affirming Google’s fair use defense against Authors Guild’s claim of copyright infringement of the Google Books search engine. Background This is the latest chapter in a longstanding legal battle between the authors’ advocacy organization, Authors Guild, and ...

In eDekka LLC v. 3Balls.com Inc., Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap ruled against plaintiff eDekka’s patent infringement claims and invalidated the patent in question. This jurisdiction has been considered friendly toward so-called patent trolls, and Judge Rodney’s opinion may indicate tougher scrutiny going forward for overly broad patents. ...

Introduction When you file a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), the website openly warns you that “The trademark registration process is a legal proceeding that may be complex . . . Therefore, you should consider hiring an attorney before starting the process.” So it ...

How should digital evidence be presented to juries? Should emoticons and other symbols be translated into words and read aloud by prosecutors and defense attorneys? As their popularity has grown with the advent of apps, such as Emoji, emoticons, have been figuring into litigation more and more frequently over the ...