By Julie Liu
Among the countless mobile applications that allow us to control much of our lives, the growing wave of medical apps allows us to manage and improve our health with the convenience of a phone or tablet. But, as illustrated by the Federal Trade Commission’s approval of its final order against the maker of the UltimEyes app, this possibility comes with important limitations. Continue reading
By Kelsey O’Neal
Everyone who has been to Southern California has probably seen a bright yellow arrow pointing to the promise of the ultimate meal: a double-double, animal style fries, and a Neapolitan shake. Where does the arrow point? In-N-Out Burger. The company typically stayed within a certain radius of its original store in Baldwin Park, CA, and it wasn’t until 2011 that it opened a restaurant in Texas. In-N-Out has been notoriously slow to expand. So, it must have been a shock for the residents of Shanghai to see animal style burgers in the Jing An Temple District in 2011. However the force behind the new store was not In-N-Out, but rather Caliburger, LLC, a Diamond Bar, CA-based company that trademarked In-N-Out’s menu items in Asia and Eastern Europe. In-N-Out wasted no time; it sued Caliburger in Santa Ana, California. The two companies settled, and the settlement was likely contingent on Caliburger’s willingness to change its menu. (For example, a “double-double” is now a “Cali-double,” and “animal style fries” became “wild fries,” which then morphed into “Cali-style fries.”) Continue reading
By Alex Bullock
Many sports and music fans find it difficult or expensive to get tickets to see their favorite team or band play live. Consumers face the challenge of finding an available ticket, and the tickets they do find are often more than what they are willing to pay. It almost feels like the system is built to favor ticket sellers and resellers. Enter New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman.
Schneiderman recently released a 43-page report entitled Obstructed View: What’s blocking New Yorkers from Getting Tickets that criticizes the ticket sales practices of sports and entertainment companies as unfair and deceptive. The report primarily focuses on consumer access to tickets. Continue reading
By Jason Liu
As technology and medicine advance, the need to streamline and regulate medicine will increase. One can visit a virtual doctor, connect medical devices to the internet, and access cutting-edge gene therapy precision medicine. However, government agencies work with laws that never considered these innovations. To update these laws, the House passed the 21st Century Cures Act in 2015. The Act currently sits in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Senate (HELP) committee. Congress may also break the bill into smaller pieces of legislation.
Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the leader of the HELP committee, recently stated that the panel will divide the 21st Century Cures Act into smaller pieces of legislation. The Act has stalled in the Senate because Democrats and Republicans disagree on how to fund the bill. Beginning Feb. 9, the committee will vote on at least seven bipartisan bills ranging from expediting therapies for rare diseases to improving electronic health records. Continue reading
By Juliya Ziskina
Since its beginning, YouTube has been involved in battles over copyright infringement, and over the years, YouTube has increased its policing of pirated material. The most common cases of copyright infringement involve using songs in a film or video without permission of the copyright holder, or placing segments of movies or music videos on websites where it is easy for the public to download them. Therefore, the giants of the entertainment industry have begun cracking down on websites such as YouTube.
YouTube, in response to these accusations, started to remove videos that may use segments of music or film without the copyright owner’s permission. Fan videos that incorporate a celebrity picture slideshow using a song as the primary audio track and videos of musicians playing covers of famous songs are common examples of videos that have been deleted from YouTube as a result of alleged copyright infringement. However, a widely known example of proper fair use is, for instance, a segment by the TV host Stephen Colbert that rebroadcasts cable news clips for the comedian to react to. Continue reading
Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts 