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US Supreme Court could hear Charleston company, Lexmark case
Law Firm Business |
2016/11/23 04:57
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A small Charleston company that refills and resells empty toner cartridges could soon be defending itself before the U.S. Supreme Court in a dispute that could affect huge tech companies and pharmaceutical firms.
Lexmark, a Lexington, Kentucky-based printing corporation, sued Impression Products, accusing the company of patent infringement for selling its cartridges, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
At issue is what is known as the first-sale doctrine, a principle limiting a patent holder's rights after a product has been sold once.
Impression Products argued Lexmark's patents on its cartridges are no longer effective after the cartridges are sold, allowing the smaller company to sell them freely. Lexmark cartridges can cost up to hundreds of dollars, and Impression Products sells used ones at a lower price.
In February, a federal court sided with Lexmark, saying the corporation's patent rights weren't exhausted, regardless of whether the cartridges were being purchased from U.S. or foreign suppliers — Impression Products has purchased toner cartridges from Canadian suppliers in the past.
Last month, the federal government recommended the Supreme Court review the case.
Impression Products President Eric Smith explained that while this doesn't guarantee that the justices will review the case, it sharply increases the probability of it happening.
The implications of the case go beyond ink cartridges, as Samsung and Google have backed Impression Products' argument. The tech giants operate foreign supply chains that would have to jump through additional hoops if the first-sale doctrine did not apply for foreign purchases. Pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer have supported Lexmark, with a Lexmark victory likely giving their own patents greater protection.
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Pakistan court adjourns case of British woman's murder
Law Firm Business |
2016/09/18 22:51
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A Pakistani court on Saturday adjourned the case of a British-Pakistani woman's murder until Sept. 23 to give police more time to finalize charges against her father and ex-husband, who are accused of slaying her in the name of honor, police and lawyers said.
Police brought both men before the court in Jhelum as they covered their faces. They avoided most questions from journalists. However, when pressed, the woman's father, Mohammad Shahid, told reporters that the accusations are "all lies."
"The police arrested me, police charged me, you go to police station and check my report, check my statement," Shahid said.
The death of 28-year-old Samia Shahid has shocked the nation as the latest alleged case of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan. The Bradford native's death while visiting Pakistan in July was originally declared to be from natural causes.
But Shahid's second husband, Mukhtar Kazim, publicly accused her family of killing her. The case was reopened and a police probe quickly concluded that Shahid's death was a "premeditated, cold-blooded murder," according to a police statement.
Police allege that Mohammed Shahid stood guard while his daughter's ex-husband, Mohammed Shakeel, raped her. The men then both strangled her, according to police.
Defense lawyer Mohammed Arif dismissed the police allegations as a baseless, saying his clients have been wrongly accused. He said he will appeal another court's recent rejection of bail for Mohammed Shahid.
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Court rules man treated for mental illness can have a gun
Law Firm Business |
2016/09/18 22:50
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A Michigan man who can't buy a gun because he was briefly treated for mental health problems in the 1980s has won a key decision from a federal appeals court, which says the burden is on the government to justify a lifetime ban against him.
The Second Amendment case was significant enough for 16 judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to participate. Cases usually are heard only by three-judge panels.
Clifford Tyler, 74, of Hillsdale said his constitutional right to bear arms is violated by a federal law that prohibits gun ownership if someone has been admitted to a mental hospital.
In 1985, Tyler's wife ran away with another man, depleted his finances and filed for divorce. He was deeply upset, and his daughters feared he was a danger to himself.
Tyler was ordered to a hospital for at least two weeks. He subsequently recovered, continued working for another two decades and remarried in 1999.
"There is no indication of the continued risk presented by people who were involuntarily committed many years ago and who have no history of intervening mental illness, criminal activity or substance abuse," Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote in the lead opinion.
The court on Thursday sent the case back to the federal court in Grand Rapids where the government must argue the merits of a lifetime ban or the risks of Tyler having a gun.
Gibbons suggests Tyler should prevail, based on his years of good mental health.
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Sotomayor calls job on high court blessing and curse
Law Firm Business |
2016/09/12 06:57
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Serving on the U.S. Supreme Court has been both a blessing and a curse and reaching decisions is harder than she ever expected, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Thursday during a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The court's first Hispanic justice told a packed campus theater that said she still marvels that she holds her position, noting she sits so close to the president at State of the Union addresses she can almost touch him. But the job comes with a heavy burden because every decision the court makes affects so many people and each ruling creates losers, she said, recalling moments in court where losing litigants have wept.
"I never forget that in every case, someone wins, and there's an opposite. Someone loses. And that burden feels very heavy to me," Sotomayor said. "I have not anticipated how hard decision-making is on the court. Because of that big win and lose on the court and we are affecting lives across the country and sometimes across the world, I'm conscious that what I do will always affect someone."
Sotomayor spoke for about an hour and a half, wandering up and down the theater's aisles and shaking hands with people as she answered questions from a pair of her former law clerks sitting on stage. She warned the audience that she couldn't talk about pending cases and the clerks never asked her about the Senate refusing to hold a hearing or vote on Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to replace the late Antonin Scalia as the court's ninth justice. The clerks instead gave her general questions about her experiences and thought processes. She kept her answers just as general.
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Family files lawsuit against hospital and city in death
Law Firm Business |
2016/07/23 17:47
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An attorney for a Florida man charged with fatally shooting a patient and employee at a hospital in an apparent random attack says his client is severely mentally ill.
Harley Gutin is an attorney for 29-year-old David Owens. He said Monday that his client is incompetent to stand trial.
Titusville, Florida, police say Owens entered Parrish Medical Center early Sunday and fatally shot 88-year-old patient Cynthia Zingsheim and employee Carrie Rouzer, who was sitting in Zingsheim's room. Owens has been charged with two counts of murder and is being held at the county jail.
Gutin says Owen's family had been trying desperately in recent weeks to get him long-term mental health care.
Gutin says he has no idea how Owens was able to get a gun.
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Appeals court rules Mississippi can resume Google inquiry
Law Firm Business |
2016/04/14 08:43
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Mississippi's attorney general can resume an investigation into whether Google facilitates illegal behavior, an appeals court ruled.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a district judge who had sided with Google. U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate ruled last year that the unit of Alphabet Inc. didn't have to answer a subpoena by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.
Hood began complaining in 2012 that Google wasn't doing enough to prevent people from breaking the law. In October 2014, he sent a 79-page subpoena demanding Google produce information about a wide range of subjects, including whether Google helps criminals by allowing its search engine to lead to pirated music, having its autocomplete function suggest illegal activities and sharing YouTube ad revenue with the makers of videos promoting illegal drug sales. Instead of complying, Google sued.
The appeals court also dissolved the lower judge's injunction that had barred Hood from bringing any civil or criminal lawsuits against the Mountain View, California-based company, saying that a mere subpoena wasn't enough to rule that Hood was acting in bad faith.
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Mississippi court upholds Democratic primary ballot change
Law Firm Business |
2016/02/26 22:09
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The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld its ruling Friday that another candidate must be added to the March 8 Democratic presidential primary ballot.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann doesn’t have to reissue already-sent absentee ballots to include Chicago businessman Willie Wilson’s name.
The ruling rejected Hosemann’s request that the court overturn its Thursday ruling, or at least allow him to resend absentee ballots including Wilson to roughly 200 military and other voters outside the country, so they would get the same ballot as voters at the polls. Absentee voting started Jan. 23 for those voters.
Hosemann said about 7,000 absentee ballots have also been sent to people in Mississippi.
“I am diametrically opposed to having different ballots,” Hosemann said.
Most counties vote electronically, but some use paper ballots that must be reprinted, and Hosemann’s office told the court changes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More than 7,000 voting machines have already been tested with a previously set ballot that lists five candidates in the Democratic presidential primary: Hillary Clinton, Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. The ballot was prepared before O’Malley dropped out.
Mississippi law says the secretary of state puts nationally recognized presidential candidates on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots. Other presidential candidates can get on the ballot by submitting a petition with at least 500 signatures. |
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