Blog
Will Improvements in Electronic Medical Records Lead to Worse Treatment for Some Patients?
While the vast majority of the country currently is debating the Supreme Court's decision to grant cert on the individual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), other acts passed by Congress are expected to have major consequences...
Cybersquatting: Lady Gaga and the UDRP
In August, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta – professionally known as Lady Gaga – looked toward the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) to obtain control of the domain name <ladygaga.org>. The domain name had been registered in June 2008 by “oranges arecool XD”,...
Bearing Printed Arms
For a good understanding of 3D printing, it’s probably easiest to watch a video demonstration. For those of you short on time, however, it’s what those in the biz refer to as additive manufacturing technology. A machine uses a schematic from a computer to lay down...
Are the FCC’s Indecency Regulations Constitutional?
Five nonprofit groups recently filed an amicus brief (PDF) in FCC v. Fox urging the Supreme Court to strike down the FCC’s policy of fining broadcast television stations for airing indecent content. The groups argue that the FCC’s policy violates the First Amendment’s...
FTC and Facebook Close to Privacy Settlement
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the impending settlement, is reporting that Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are close to a settlement over alleged deceptive practices with respect to several Facebook features, including its privacy settings....
Supreme Court Hears Argument on Police Use of GPS Technology
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in U.S. v. Jones, where the Court considered whether tracking a vehicle on public streets with an affixed GPS device and without a warrant violates the vehicle owner’s Fourth Amendment rights. This question has...
New study finds parents ignore age-restrictions on social media sites
Most everyone you know has an account with social media sites such as Facebook. This includes your friends, your employer, the people sitting near you at Starbucks, and, even, your 10-year-old cousin. But unlike the rest, your cousin isn’t supposed to, according to...
Supreme Court Will Not Review Public School’s Punishment for Student’s Off-Campus Blog Post
On Monday, October 31, 2011, the Supreme Court denied the first of three petitions this Term – Doninger v. Niehoff, et al (11-113) – requesting the court to rule on the whether public school officials may discipline students for online comments or postings made on...
The BART Cell Phone Shutdown: Are Mobile Phones A Necessary Part of Free Speech?
Back in August, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) garnered national attention when it shut down cell phone service to limit a political protest over the shooting death of a homeless man by BART police. BART released a statement the following day stating that “a civil...
The “Trickle Down Theory” of Music Streaming Revenue: Is Legal Intervention Necessary for Artist Payout?
How much do streaming services pay artists? The question has been asked with increasing frequency of online services from Spotify to Rhapsody and even iTunes, yet is often met by disparate - and thus unenlightening - figures, or naïveté. Illustrating this latter...
House Introduces Stop Online Piracy Act
Yesterday the House of Representatives introduced its version of the Protect IP Act, known as the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (“SOPA”). The Senate previously placed a hold on the Protect IP Act over worries that it violated the First Amendment, after commentators from...
The Policy of Gene Patenting – Are the Courts the Appropriate Venue for this Debate?
Last week, following the denial of its petition for a panel rehearing, the ACLU announced that it will seek to bring the much-debated Myriad Genetics case before the Supreme Court. Among other things, the case involves the patentability of isolated DNA – pieces of...
Is a Computer Better Than You at Negotiating?: The Use and Usefulness of Online Dispute Resolution
My first semester of law school, our torts professor explained to the class that we were training for a career in which we would essentially become nothing more than very expensive transaction costs. I’m pretty sure her intention with this comment was to cut short a...
Spotify Lawsuit Demonstrates Weaknesses of Patent Law System
In July 2011 a new on demand music-streaming service, Spotify, launched in the United States. However, within two weeks of its U.S. launch it was hit with a lawsuit. The complaint was not filed, as many had expected, by a record label company, but instead by the...
Golan v. Holder: Copyright & the 1st Amendment
Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning Golan v. Holder, potentially one of the most influential copyright cases in United States history. This case centers around whether Congress has the power to restore copyright protection to works whose...
What Does Sale of Borders Intellectual Property to Barnes & Noble Mean?
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Borders has gained final court approval for its $13.9 million intellectual property sale to former competitor Barnes & Noble. Borders was once the second-largest bookstore chain after Barnes & Noble. So after being the...
The FCC v. ISPs: Net Neutrality and the Battle for Internet Freedom
In December 2010, the FCC announced its new 'net neutrality' rules, in efforts to promote "freedom and openness" of the Internet and to prevent service providers from limiting which Internet sites and services their customers can access and controlling access speed....
United States v. Antoine Jones: GPS Tracking, Privacy Expectations, and Public Places
In a little under two months, the United States Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in United States v. Antoine Jones, regarding the government’s ability to perform warrantless GPS tracking of a criminal suspect's vehicle. Although the case addresses only a...
Let It “Burn”: R&B Artist Usher Sued for Copyright Infringement for #1 Hit Song
R&B hit artist Usher is currently the subject of a copyright infringement suit. Last year, songwriter Ernest Lee Straughter filed suit in the Central District of California alleging that Usher's number one hit song "Burn," released in July 2004, infringed on...
Regulating Electronic Health Care Records
In a 2009 Berkeley Technology Law Journal paper, E-Health Hazards: Provider Liability and Electronic Health Record Systems, Sharona Hoffman and Andy Podgurski argued that potential liability arising from the widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) could end...
Cable Carriage and the Modern Marketplace of Ideas
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the term “marketplace of ideas” in his 1919 Abrams v. United States dissent. He compared freedom of information to the economic idea of the “free market,” in which the quality of a product determines consumer demand,...
Idiopathic Short Stature: The FDA and Its High-Stakes Conceptual Quagmires
Lionel Messi is perhaps the world’s most celebrated soccer player. Despite standing only 5’6”, the Argentinian striker is strong, fast, and impossibly skilled. However, as a child, doctors predicted he wouldn’t grow any taller than 4’7”. Diagnosed at age 11 with a...
Unlikely Competitor Pushing to the Front of the Telecom Wars
The often-overlooked Sprint made two majors moves this week to take center stage in the "battle of the telecoms." Sprint began the week by filing a suit on behalf of “consumers and competition” against both AT&T and T-Mobile in response to the potential merger...
CLE for Patent Attorneys and Agents
Most states and territories in the United States require attorneys to meet continuing legal education (CLE) requirements in order to practice law before their courts. Only Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Washington D.C., and Michigan do not...
Posts on the MTLR Blog are editorial opinion pieces written by student-editors of the Michigan Technology Law Review. The opinions expressed in these editorial posts are not espoused or endorsed by the University of Michigan or its Law School. To view scholarly Articles and Notes published by the Michigan Technology Law Review, please visit the MTLR home page.