The Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts (LTA Journal) has published its Winter 2013 Issue. The LTA Journal publishes concise legal analysis aimed at practicing attorneys on a quarterly basis. This quarter’s edition includes two articles by student members of the LTA Journal and two articles by legal practitioners. 

The issue’s first article is “What Your Tweet Doesn’t Say: Twitter, Non-Content Data, and the Stored Communications Act,” written by 2012-2013 Associate Editor-in-Chief Daniel Shickich. This article discusses a recent federal district court decision which held Twitter users have no privacy rights regarding non-content information associated with their use of Twitter. The article examines the court’s Stored Communications Act and Fourth Amendment analyses and discusses the impact of expanded warrantless disclosures of non-content electronic records.

J.C. Lundberg, 2012-2013 Associate Editor-in-Chief, contributed “When Is a Phone a Computer?.” This article compares what constitutes a computer for federal sentencing guidelines with the law federal courts apply in determining whether a mobile phone is a computer for search and seizure purposes.

Practicing attorneys Daniel B. Garrie and Yoav M. Griver coauthored the third article, “Unchaining E-Discovery in the Patent Courts.” This article analyzes the Federal Circuit’s Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases (the “Model Order”). The article briefly describes the purpose behind the Model Order, describes its key provisions, analyzes the Model Order to identify some areas of continuing concern, and defines predictive coding to examine the impact, or lack thereof, on the Model Order.

Attorney and UW Law Intellectual Property Law and Policy LL.M. graduate Kristen L. Burge contributed the final article. Her article, “Personalized Medicine, Genetic Exceptionalism, and the Rule of Law: An Analysis of the Prevailing Justification for Invalidating BRCA1/2 Patents in Association of Molecular Pathology v. USPTO,”  analyzes the district court’s incorporation of genetic exceptionalism into the Patent Act in Association of Molecular Pathology v. USPTO (“Myriad”) and further examines the case through the lens of genetic exceptionalism.

Photo Credit greenasian of Flickr

By Daniel Shickich

In a victory for American college students and foreign entrepreneurs, the United States Supreme Court declared Tuesday that the “first sale” doctrine protects resellers of textbooks from copyright infringement, even when they move the goods across national boundaries. The suit arose when academic textbook maker John Wiley & Sons, Inc. sued Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student-entrepreneur, for infringing their copyright. As part of its international publishing business, John Wiley & Sons assigns rights to publish, print, and sell foreign editions of its English-language textbooks abroad to its wholly owned foreign subsidiary, Wiley Asia. Included in books published by Wiley Asia is a disclaimer stating that the books are not to be taken without permission into the United States. The books sold at a significantly cheaper price in Thailand than in the United States. Continue reading →

Photo Credit Paul Bailey

By Aaron Orheim

On Wednesday March 6 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in Radio Systems Corp. v. Lalor. This decision is a valuable reminder that the doctrine of equitable estoppel can be a powerful force in patent litigation. Continue reading →

By Colin Conerton

Last weekend, during NASCAR’s Nationwide Series DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona Speedway, a horrific accident occurred on the final lap as racecars collided sending tires and other debris flying over the protective barrier and into the stands at hundreds of miles per hour and seriously injuring more than 20 spectators. As one might imagine, much of this tragedy was captured on personal recording devices (e.g. cellphones) and immediately posted on YouTube for others to view. Almost immediately after being posted online, NASCAR contacted YouTube demanding the videos of the crash be removed on copyright grounds. To demonstrate to YouTube that a copyright violation had occurred, NASCAR likely pointed to the back of its tickets, which indicate NASCAR “owns the rights to all images, sounds and data.” NASCAR later issued a follow-up statement indicating that it requested the fan video be removed not because of a copyright violation (although YouTube claimed it did), but because, “[t]he fan video of the wreck on the final lap of today’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race was blocked on YouTube out of respect for those injured in today’s accident. Information on the status of those fans was unclear and the decision was made to err on the side of caution with this very serious incident.” Continue reading →