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Flash Digest – News in Brief

By Alicia Loh – Edited by Tue Tran
Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments for South Dakota v. Wayfair On Tuesday, April 17, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for South Dakota v. Wayfair, No. 17-494, 2018 U.S. LEXIS 2211 (2018), a case that could result in mandatory state and local sales tax for online purchases. South Dakota passed Senate Bill 106 in 2016 that required online retailers to...
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Reports Flash Digest Privacy
People v. Buza: California Supreme Court Reverses Appellate Judgement Against Collecting DNA Samples through Buccal Swab

By Benjamin Sanchez – Edited by Harout Ekmanian
People v. Buza, No. S223698 (February 18, 2015), California Supreme Court Opinion via Stanford Law School Supreme Court of California Resources. In 2004, California voters passed Proposition 69 (the “DNA Act”), which required law enforcement officials to collect DNA samples, through buccal swab, from all persons who are arrested for or convicted of felony offenses in the state. Earlier this month...
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Reports Privacy
Uber Reaches Expanded Data Privacy Settlement with FTC

By Ashwini Bharatkumar – Edited by David Macauley
On April 12, 2018, Uber reached an expanded settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) over charges of misrepresentation of data privacy practices. The 2018 settlement is yet another round in Uber’s data privacy-related fisticuffs with the FTC, the administrative agency tasked with regulating business practices to protect consumer interests. In 2017, the FTC charged Uber with misleading consumers...
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Reports Privacy
Federal Circuit Flash Digest – In re Brandt: Prima Facie Obviousness Found From Prior Art Disclosure of Similar, Though Non-Overlapping, Numeric Range

By Nanding Chen—edited by Amy Zhao
In re: Brandt, No. 2016-2601, 2018 WL 1473869 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 27, 2018). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's (“Board”) decision, which had upheld an examiner’s obviousness rejection of Gregory A. Brandt, John B. Letts, and Firestone Building Products Company LLC’s ("Brandt") patent application claims related to construction board for...
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Reports Federal Circuit Comment Patent
Laurenson v. Hogan: Mr. Hogan, Unblock Your Constituent—Settlement Requires Maryland Governor to Allow Dissent on His Social Media

By Rex Bray III – Edited by Daniel Sylvia
Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief and Damages, Laurenson v. Hogan, No. 8:17-CV-02162-DKC (D. Md. filed August 1, 2017), complaint hosted by ACLU of Maryland. Release and Settlement Agreement, Laurenson v. Hogan, No. 8:17-CV-02162-DKC (D. Md. filed August 1, 2017), settlement hosted by ACLU of Maryland. Governor Lawrence J. Hogan settled with several plaintiffs, requiring the State of Maryland to...
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Reports First Amendment
Oracle v. Google: Federal Circuit Rules No Fair Use Protection for Google’s Copying of Java API Packages

By Michael McCambridge ¬– Edited by Jaehwan Park
Oracle America, Inc., v. Google LLC, No. 17-1118, (Fed. Cir. Mar. 27, 2018), opinion hosted by USCourts.gov. In a result that sends the case back to California for a third jury trial, the Federal Circuit ruled as a matter of law that Google’s use of 37 Java API packages did not qualify as a fair use. Google based their Android...
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Copyright Reports
Nasdaq v. IEX Group: Nasdaq sues (again) a fledgling stock-exchange operator

By Yang Yu – Edited by William McClure
Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial, Nasdaq, Inc. et al. v. IEX Group, Inc. et al., No. 3:18-cv-03014 (D.N.J., Mar. 1, 2018), hosted by IPWatchdog. On March 1, 2018, Nasdaq Inc., a company that owns the Nasdaq stock market, sued another stock exchange operator, IEX Inc, in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging seven...
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Reports Patent
Flash Digest – News in Brief

Terms of Service 0 – Researchers 1: Judge Rules in Favor of the Plaintiffs in Sandvig v. Sessions On March 30, 2018, in Sandvig v. Sessions, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that scraping data from websites plausibly falls within the ambit of the First Amendment and violating a website’s terms of service is not...
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Reports First Amendment Flash Digest
Coalition of 32 State AGs Outline Opposition to Federal Preemption of State Data Breach Notification Laws

By Saranna Soroka – Edited by Thomas Weber
On March 19, 2018, a bipartisan coalition of 32 state Attorneys General outlined their opposition to the House draft Data Acquisition and Technology Accountability and Security Act, which was introduced by Representative Luetkemeyer (R-MO) and Representative Maloney (D-NY) on February 16, 2018. According to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services staff, the bill would “replace the current...
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Reports Privacy
Federal Circuit Flash Digest – Aviation v. United States: Termination of the Right to Sue Libyan Government Not a Taking

By Amy Zhao – Edited by Benjamin Gunning
Aviation & Gen. Ins. Co., Ltd. v. United States, No. 2016-2389, 2018 WL 817247 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 12, 2018) In Aviation & Gen. Ins. Co., Ltd. v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of Federal Claims’ grant of summary judgment for the U.S. Government (“Government”), holding that the termination of Aviation’s lawsuits...
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Reports Federal Circuit Comment