Federal Circuit Clarifies the Level of Contribution Required for Joint Invention of a Chemical Compound By Yana Welinder – Edited by Adam Lewin Falana v. Kent State Univ., No. 2011-1198, 2012 WL 171550 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 23, 2012) Slip Opinion The Federal Circuit affirmed in part the ruling of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, which held that Dr. Olusegun Falana should have been listed as co-inventor on a patent that described the use of his ... Read More...
Archive for February, 2012
Written by Heather Whitney Edited by Kassity Liu Editorial Policy United States v. Jones (U.S. Jan. 23, 2012) 2012 WL 171117; No. 10-1259 In a hotly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court unanimously found that the Government’s warrantless attachment of a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device to a vehicle to monitor its movement constituted a Fourth Amendment violation. While unanimous in judgment, the Court split on both its underlying reasoning and with regards to whether the tracking amounted to a ... Read More...
Megaupload.com indicted by Department of Justice By Daniella Adler – Edited by Abby Lauer U.S. v. Kim Dotcom et al., 1:12-cr-3 (E.D. Va.) Indictment The Department of Justice recently brought a criminal indictment against Megaupload.com and related websites in the Eastern District of Virginia on three different counts of copyright infringement as well as money laundering and racketeering. The indictment calls the operators of Megaupload.com and its environs the “Mega-Conspiracy” and describes it as a “worldwide criminal organization.” The government ... Read More...
District Court Holds that Defendant Cannot Refuse to Decrypt Hard Drive under Fifth Amendment By Brittany Horth – Edited by Abby Lauer U.S. v. Fricosu, No. 10-CR-00509 (D. Colo. Jan. 23, 2012) Slip Opinion hosted by Internet Cases Judge Robert E. Blackburn of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado granted the government’s motion to compel Ramona Camelia Fricosu to provide an unencrypted copy of her hard drive for evidentiary purposes. The court considered whether the act ... Read More...
By Susanna Lichter Google Privacy Revisions Stir Debate Google announced a new privacy policy last Monday, raising the concerns of privacy advocates, the Washington Post reports. The policy will allow the web giant to collect information across Google services including search, Gmail and YouTube. Google alleges that the changes will “provide, maintain, protect and improve” Google’s functionality as well as generate “more relevant search results and ads” for users. So far the policy has received mixed reviews. Digital rights organizations ... Read More...
