Can human genes be patented?  That is the complex question the Supreme Court wrestled with during oral argument April 15.

02 May 2013Deborah Nathan

The resolution of the question is likely to have an impact far beyond the immediate case before the court, some legal experts say.

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A woman who says she was fired from her job at a home health care services provider for blowing the whistle on alleged fraud can pursue her retaliation claim against the company, a federal judge in New York has ruled.

25 Apr 2013Deborah Nathan

 Patricia Mooney may also pursue her allegations that Americare Inc. and its subsidiaries fraudulently altered documents to justify the provision of home health services, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York ruled.

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Members of the celebrity Kardashian family are suing the widow of their late father and husband, Robert Kardashian, for unlawfully keeping copyrighted items that they say he bequeathed to them.

17 Apr 2013Deborah Nathan

 Siblings Kourtney, Kimberly, Khloé and Robert Kardashian Jr. and their mother, Kris Jenner, claim that Ellen Pearson is trying to exploit family photographs and a private diary of Robert Sr.

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Temple University is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a student-athlete who says the school discriminated and retaliated against her for reporting her alleged assault by a football player.

11 Apr 2013Deborah Nathan

 In its brief supporting its motion to dismiss, Temple disputes Emily Frazer’s version of the facts and her interpretation of the law.

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A federal judge has thrown out a complaint alleging that 24 drug manufacturers, distributors and labelers fraudulently misrepresented their products as eligible for Medicaid reimbursement, causing the federal government to pay state programs over $500 million for the drugs.

28 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

Whistle-blower Constance Conrad could not surmount the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar, U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel of the District of Massachusetts said.

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Reversing two lower court decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the “first sale” doctrine applies to copyrighted works lawfully made in a foreign country.

20 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

The 6-3 decision is a victory for petitioner Supap Kirtsaeng, who unsuccessfully argued in the lower courts that under the first-sale doctrine, he did not infringe the copyrights of publisher John Wiley & Sons when he bought Wiley textbooks made in Thailand, imported them to the United States and resold them.  

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A website operator cannot insulate himself from charges of cybersquatting by real estate magnate Donald Trump simply by appending a geographic location to the “Trump” domain names he registered, a federal judge has ruled.

20 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

J. Taikwok Yung, operator of Web-Adviso, is not entitled to a declaratory judgment that his domain names Trumpabudhabi.com, Trumpbeijing.com, Trumpindia.com and Trumpmumbai.com did not infringe Trump’s trademarks, U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry said.

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A 16-year-old novice bull-rider who was killed when she was thrown and kicked by a bull at a rodeo died because of the negligence of the event’s operator, a complaint filed in Florida state court has alleged.

14 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

Defendant Remington Rough Stock Co., owned by Corey Costa, should never have permitted Brooke Coats to be put on an aggressive bull, according to the suit filed in the Hillsborough County 13th Judicial Circuit Court.

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A federal judge has enjoined the state of New Jersey from implementing a sports wagering law that would have permitted gambling on professional and amateur sporting events.

14 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp of the District of New Jersey rejected the state’s constitutional challenges to the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 3701, which bars gambling on sports.

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An expert on Sherlock Holmes is asking a federal court to rule that a new collection of original short stories he edited featuring the canny fictional detective does not infringe any copyrights held by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originator of the Holmes character.

07 Mar 2013Deborah Nathan

Leslie S. Klinger, a California lawyer who has written extensively about Holmes, claims the Conan Doyle works on which the edited short stories are based are now in the public domain.

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