Latest Blog Posts

• Blog: Intellectual Property & Technology
  Blog: Products Liability
  Date: March 31, 2020 Title: New York Judge Holds Additional Clinical Trial Results Must Be Reported to Public FDA Database
  Summary: A district court in New York has ruled that drug and clinical trial sponsors cannot avoid their obligation to submit “basic results” about the outcome of trials for approved products between September 27, 2007, when a statute requiring publication of this information on ClinicalTrials.gov went into effect, and January 18, 2017, when regulations finally went into effect to implement the statute. ...
• Blog: Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
  Blog: Insurance Law
  Date: March 31, 2020 Title: Legislative Alert: Virginia Expands Insurance Data Security Requirements
  Summary: On February 25, 2020, the Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill 1334, the Insurance Data Security Act, which establishes data security requirements applicable to persons licensed by the insurance laws of the Commonwealth. Following on other state laws that have created data security regimes applicable to the insurance industry, the Virginia law requires licensees to maintain the security of information systems and nonpublic information. ...
• Blog: Labor & Employment
  Date: March 30, 2020 Title: 5 Critical Lessons from Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of African American-Owned Media
  Summary: Certain to become a major factor in employment litigation, an opinion issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 23, 2020 clarifies the burden for plaintiffs to meet in discrimination claims filed under 42 U.S.C. §1981. Here are the top 5 takeaways of this case for employers....
• Blog: Labor & Employment
  Date: March 27, 2020 Title: AB 2355 Aims to Make Medical Cannabis Users a Protected Class in California
  Summary: California Assembly Member Rob Bonta recently introduced Assembly Bill 2355 (AB 2355), which, if enacted, would make medical cannabis users a protected class in California. California was the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996, but AB 2355 is not the first legislation of its kind....
• Blog: Intellectual Property & Technology
  Date: March 25, 2020 Title: PTAB Cannot Permit Self-Joinder or Issue-Joinder and POP Statutory Constructions Receive No Deference
  Summary: The Federal Circuit ruled the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) cannot permit a party to join itself as a party to its own existing inter partes review (IPR) petition and cannot permit adding new time-barred issues to an old petition by joinder. ...
• Blog: Labor & Employment
  Date: March 24, 2020 Title: Anti-Harassment Policy No Longer Enough? How the Landscape is Changing for Employers Defending Against Sexual Harassment Liability
  Summary: An anti-harassment policy is the cornerstone of protecting the workplace from sexual harassment. This is especially true following the #MeToo movement, which took social media platforms and various media outlets by storm beginning in 2017....
• Blog: Intellectual Property & Technology
  Blog: COVID-19 Response Resource Center
  Date: March 23, 2020 Title: Trademark Registrations Are No Place For Pandemic Opportunism
  Summary: Major cultural and world events, along with even goofy tweets, often give rise to a run on the trademark office by those hoping to strike it rich through being the first to monopolize a phrase. No one ever gets rich from this tactic and these antics only illustrate the profound misunderstanding most of the populace has about what a trademark is....
• Blog: Intellectual Property & Technology
  Date: March 20, 2020 Title: The Dominos Have Started to Fall After Landmark “Stairway to Heaven” Copyright Ruling
  Summary: One of the biggest rulings in music copyright law was recently issued by an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and its impact has already been felt in another high-profile case. The decision in Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin (Ninth Circuit No. 16-56057, Issued March 9, 2020) marked what will certainly be seen by copyright scholars as a watershed moment. ...
• Blog: Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
  Blog: COVID-19 Response Resource Center
  Blog: Healthcare
  Blog: Healthcare Regulatory & Compliance
  Date: March 20, 2020 Title: OCR Announces HIPAA Telehealth Security Waiver in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic
  Summary: The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is the body responsible for enforcing certain regulations pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), is exercising its enforcement discretion to meet the needs of health care providers and patients during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) public health emergency. ...
• Blog: Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
  Date: March 19, 2020 Title: Legislative Alert: Vermont Expands Definition of Personal Information and Enacts Protections for Student Privacy and Automatic Subscription Renewals
  Summary: On March 5, 2020, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed into law Senate Bill 110, which amends sections of Chapter 62 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated - “Protection of Personal Information” - including Sections 2430, 2435, and 2454. The bill also adds Section 2443 to the chapter, which governs the privacy of student information belonging to preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and secondary school students....