Blog
The Big Test – Proposed Comcast and NBC Universal Merger
The proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal is a major test for the Obama administration's positions on vertical mergers and media consolidation. Comcast has already made some commitments to aid it during the review process, which is likely to take at least...
Microsoft Word Injunction and Damages Upheld in the Federal Circuit
A three judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently upheld the injunction against Microsoft that goes into effect January 11, 2010. The panel also upheld the nearly $300 million in damages from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District...
ACLU vs. Myriad Genetics: A New Era in an Age Long Debate?
On May 12, 2009, the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of four scientific organizations - the Association for Medical Pathology, the American College of Medical Genetics, the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the College of...
UIGEA Delayed Until June 1, 2010 (or: The State of Online Poker)
Advocates of online poker breathed a sigh of relief recently, as a key provision of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 has been delayed until June 1, 2010. For those of you less keen on the trials and tribulations of online poker players, I will...
Microsoft Bans ‘Modded’ XBoxes from XBox Live
Larry Hyrb a.ka. 'Major Nelson', the Director of Programming for XBox Live explained Microsoft's reason for banning users who used 'modded' Xboxes from XBox Live. These Xboxes were altered to change the functionality of the Xbox to among other things play games...
FDA Regulation of Ground Beef
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. Researchers at the USDA Economic Research Service estimate that the...
Round 2 for Nokia
After withdrawing its complaint against Qualcomm, Nokia filed a suit against Apple claiming the iPhone infringed on Nokia's wireless technology. Both parties stipulated to an extension for Apple to answer the complaint, and with that answer came a countersuit. Apple...
Biohacking: Jurassic Park in your backyard
There is a growing trend of hobbyists and garage-entrepreneurs who experiment with genetic engineering. Also known as “bio-hacking”, these enterprising individuals are able to buy biotech equipment very cheaply, usually from eBay or Craigslist to make their own...
European Union (EU) regulators drop Qualcomm investigation
European Union (EU) regulators closed their investigation of Qualcomm Inc. after all of the companies accusing Qualcomm of charging excessive royalties on technology patents withdrew their complaints. In 2005, six technology companies filed complaints alleging that...
Protecting Online Consumers from “Orwellian” Tracking?
Consumers' money isn't the only thing that needs protecting, at least if you ask the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission. David Vladeck, former Georgetown law professor and attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group,...
Failing to Twitter: Assault and Criminal Nuisance?
When teen pop star Justin Bieber's signing became a riot of teens on Friday around 2:30pm, police were called in to control the crowd. Unable to quickly contain the situation, they asked his label's VP, James A. Roppo, to send out a tweet to cancel the event and...
Facebook Pictures Cause Woman to Lose Health Benefits
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is reporting that a 29-year-old woman from Quebec has lost her health benefits due to a set of pictures posted to her Facebook account. The woman, Nathalie Blanchard, suffers from a form of depression that is so severe that...
SEC Moving on Flash Trading, High Frequency Trading
“So if I know about a stock’s activity one day before it’s insider trading, but if I know about a stock’s activity one second before it’s high frequency trading?” -Samantha Bee, The Daily Show Ms. Bee doesn’t have it quite right, but mainstream comedy shows rarely...
Status Anxiety
The New York Times reported Wednesday that a man arrested in connection with a robbery got the charges against him dropped by proving that a status updated was posted to his Facebook account at the time. Rodney Bradford, 19, hired a criminal defense attorney who...
False Hope?
One of the most prominent copyright/fair use cases over the last year has been artist Shepard Fairey's dispute with the Associated Press (AP) over his famous poster of now-President Obama during the 2008 Presidential Campaign. The poster, which featured a stylized...
Net Neutrality: The FCC Wants a Say
In other government regulation of the internet news, the FCC is preparing to vote this month on two new net neutrality principles that would prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking lawful content transfer, and would require the ISPs to disclose their...
The U.S. Government and the Internet: One Step Left, One Step Right
ICANN took a giant step towards true internationalization last week when it signed a new agreement with the U.S. government that explicitly envisions a transition into privatization of the organization. Granted, the new agreement still gives the U.S. Department of...
Facebook Sued for Violating Social Networking Patent
The patent in question was filed by WhoGlue on May 9, 2002 and granted on July 17, 2007. The patent very broadly covers "an information management system, method and computer program code and means for facilitating communications between user members of an online...
The Bilski Effect: Not Just Business Methods
In Diamond v. Diehr, the Supreme Court held that a process claim is not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 if the claim preempts a “fundamental principle,” such as a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea. On the other hand, a claim is...
The law (firm) is your friend: Is social networking changing legal culture?
Law firms have empirically been a pretty conservative group, and they are not usually known for embracing technological fads very quickly, if at all. This is why it is all the more surprising that Bloomberg reported yesterday that social networking sites, including...
Gawronski v. Amazon Update
The New York Times reported today that Amazon has changed its mind yet again about deleting Kindle copies of Orwell works, due to it lacking the rights to them. Amazon is now offering affected customers a free upload of a different, legally authorized edition--and...
Bill Would Give President Emergency Control Over Internet
Speaking of destroying the internet, CBSNews.com reporter Declan McCullagh reports Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recently introduced legislation that would give the president the authority to seize control of the Internet and order a...
Posner’s idea to save the newspaper industry: Get rid of the internet.
Richard Posner, 7th circuit appellate judge and expert on all things law and economics, recently commented on the impending death of newspapers. His post blames the "free riding" of blogs and other websites for the year-over-year decline of newspaper revenue. Many...
Gawronski v. Amazon: Kindle Class-Action Lawsuit
When Amazon controversially deleted copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 from its Kindles back in July, the ironic parallels between fact and fiction sent the Internet collectively scrambling to brush up on its literary quips. Not a bad thing, at least from...
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.