Blog
Employee Privacy Challenged
In an opinion earlier this week, the California Supreme Court held that an employee's right to privacy in the workplace is not boundless. An article on law.com lays out the reasoning behind the court's decision. It should be noted that this decision is limited in...
Jackson Browne v. John McCain: Copyright Lawsuit Settled, Case Dismissed
The lawsuit between rock artist Jackson Browne and Senator John McCain and the Republican Party was recently settled, and ordered dismissed on August 4, 2009, almost a year after the suit was filed by Browne. Browne filed a lawsuit against McCain, the Republican...
Twitter Sued for Patent Infringement
Twitter has been the subject of controversy as of late, primarily regarding the content of "tweets," Twitter's user-sent messages. Some of this controversy has turned into legal action. While the highest-profile controversies involve celebrities, such as the one...
Tweaking the Regulatory Compliance Defense
Last year, Professor Catherine Sharkey wrote that preemption is the “is the fiercest battle in products liability litigation today.” Catherine M. Sharkey, Products Liability Preemption: An Institutional Approach,76 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 449, 450 (2008) . Earlier this...
Sewing up a $300 Wings sweater?
It's not often that we can legitimately link to an ESPN article here. EPSN's Lester Munson provides a great write-up of the stakes involved in American Needle v. National Football League. For those not following the American Needle case, American Needle manufacturer...
New Legislation to Regulate Automated Political Calls
You may think of robocalls as those annoying automated calls about warrantees that the FCC is cracking down on. But if you have a land line and regularly vote in elections, you probably receive political robocalls as well. These robocalls are subject to fewer...
Impact of Student-Written Work
MTTLR, like many journals, publishes content written by both students and scholars. Though articles written by scholars (professors, practitioners, judges, etc.) are generally considered more significant, student-written content has had a noticeable impact and has...
MTTLR Volume 15, Issue 1 Is Now Available
MTTLR is pleased to announce the availability of its new issue, Volume 15, Issue 1. Here are the highlights: J. Jonas Anderson writes on the temporary presence exception and patent infringement avoidance [PDF]. Leah Chan Grinvald writes on Chinese Trademark Law [PDF]....
New Zealand rethinks “3 strikes” copyright law
New Zealand's government announced this week that their proposed "three strikes"/"graduated response" copyright law would not go into effect, and would be rewritten from the ground up.The law, which would have required ISPs to cut off internet access to users who had...
Are Subpoena Standards Substantive, Procedural, or Constitutional Law?
As courts [PDF] have established standards for subpoenas to ISPs in online defamation lawsuits, they have raised new questions. Professor Wasserman has raised the question whether these standards are a part of state substantive defamation law that federal courts would...
Cook County Sheriff Files Suit Against craigslist for Facilitation of Prostitution
On March 5th, Cook County sheriff Tom Dart sued craiglist, Inc. in U.S. District Court for “knowingly promoting and facilitating prostitution” through its “Exotic Services” section. Dart does not seem fixated on the crime of prostitution per se, but that “missing...
Should Traditional Radio Stations Pay Music Royalties?
Congressional hearings this week focused on whether or not traditional radio stations should have to pay royalties for the music they play. Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, was among those who testified in support of H.R. 848, The Performance Royalties Act....
Federal Stem Cell funding approved – which states to benefit?
Monday, President Obama signed an executive order intended to foster stem-cell research, reversing the policies of the previous administration that limited research to existing stem-cell lines. Further Congressional action will be necessary to remove all federal...
Supreme Court to consider federal jurisdiction over unregistered copyrights
The Supreme Court has granted cert in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, a case arising from settlement negotiations following New York Times v. Tasini. In Tasini (full decision), the court determined that freelancers who had not explicitly licensed electronic publication...
Legal Issues Arising From New Requirements for Licensing of Computer Forensics in Michigan
by: Rodney Tolentino, Associate Editor, MTTLR There is a current trend among states, including Texas, Georgia and South Carolina, to require computer forensic technicians to be licensed by state agencies as private investigators.1 On May 28, 2008, Michigan joined...
The Implication of Quanta for Patentees
by: Ali-Reza Boloori, Associate Editor, MTTLR The Supreme Court in Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Elecs., Inc.1 made a broad, contemporary affirmation of the principle of patent exhaustion. By answering in the affirmative the question of “whether patent exhaustion...
Tiffany v. eBay – Transnational Trademark Problems?
by Jeff Liu , MTTLR Associate Editor Last summer, a federal district court ruled, in Tiffany v. Ebay, that online marketplace eBay was not liable under trademark and unfair competition law for facilitating the sale of counterfeit items on its website. The court noted...
Testing the Scope of Fuel Economy Standard Preemption: The New York Taxicab Cases
by: Joshua E. Ney, Associate Editor, MTTLR Image Feeding Frenzy by 54east. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC 2.0 license.Under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) prescribes corporate average fuel...
Criminal charges for cell-phone self-portraits – more harm than good.
by Melanie Persinger, MTTLR Associate Editor Image Lincoln by Katy/teapics. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license. As new technologies become part of our lives, teenagers figure out a way to use these technologies to do what it is they do best: get...
Policing the Police – Citizen Video Footage
by: Wayland Radin, MTTLR Associate EditorAs the ubiquity of Apple’s iPhone constantly reminds us, cellular phone technology has progressed to the point that its hard to find a phone that doesn’t have a camera. While remarkable footage has infrequently reached the...
Licensing online quotations – link roundup
by Nancy Sims, MTTLR Blog editorIn early June, news site the Drudge Retort received DMCA takedown notices from the Associated Press, for several pieces containing 39- to 79-word quotations from AP articles . Although the AP quickly backed off on their DMCA threat,...
The Debate Fueling the Legislative Gridlock over Telecom Immunity
by: Manoj Ramia, Associate Editor, MTTLRImage "Hinata rewiring the patch panel" by Gerard van Schip. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.Articles on “telecom immunity” have peppered newspapers and magazines for some time now. Proposed...
The ADA and Personality Testing – The 7th and 8th Circuit Split on the Permissibility of the MMPI in Pre-Offer of Employment Screening
by: Thomas Ritzert, Associate Editor, MTTLRImage "Soul Searching" by *YourGuide.Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. In 2006, 46 percent of US employers drew from a pool of over 8,000 different psychological and personality tests for use in screening...
Big Ten Network Reaches a Big Impasse
by: Colin J. McIntyre, Associate Editor, MTTLRIntroductionIn June of 2006, the Big Ten Conference announced its agreement with the Big Ten Network (“BTN”), in which the network paid for the rights to air a variety of Big Ten events and made a commitment to promote Big...
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.