The courts have long applied a presumption against the extraterritorial reach of US law. While Congress can use domestic laws to regulate conduct outside of the United States, such regulation is not generally the norm.
A new Gallup poll shows 70% of people polled support same-sex marriage. In 1996, only 27% supported it. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Tim Holbrook, a long-time advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, says it's because more people now openly identify as LGBTQ+. "I think that it means that the queer community just becomes part of the tapestry of American culture and American life in a way that is inclusive and welcoming," he said.
Hundreds of "Submarine Patents' may be affected by a recent federal circuit ruling, Bloomberg Law reports. A Nevada man's quest for patents on computer designs may be at an end after a ruling that the decades-long delays getting his applications considered may be his own fault. "I found the prosecution laches decision yesterday fascinating/odd for a number of reasons," Holbrook said.
The United States' vigorous protection of Intellectual property drives the innovation "that has made the United States an economic powerhouse," Professor Tim Holbrook writes for Insider Advantage. His op-ed centers on the SK Innovation case expected to be decided this week. LG Chem says SK misappropriated its trade secrets for lithium batteries.
The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has generated discussion about the future of Roe v. Wade, Professor Timothy Holbrook writes in a CNN op-ed. However, "Roe is not the only precedent at risk," he writes. "Marriage equality may be too." He discusses recent statements by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that "make clear that the vitality of Obergefell is in doubt."
A company that has called infringement for what it claims is patented contract tracing software likely faces a tough road to proving it, says Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. Blyncsy seeks the equivalent of $1 per resident from states that have released or plan to release contact tracing apps. One of its 2019 patents describes ways to track "contagion" using Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular signals. "It was a little bit shocking that a patent of this breadth managed to get out," Holbrook said. While it refers to an abstract idea of tracking proximity, the patent doesn't include many specifics on implementation beyond common methods like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. "Even dating apps rely on a similar concept," Holbrook said.
A Georgia couple took a fan photo of Cam Newton that was later used to create a fake scenario (retweeted by ESPN and others) about the quarterback joining the Patriots. They felt wronged. Professors Tim Holbrook and Nicole Morris, both experts in IP, tell Fox 5 about one’s options when your social media posts are appropriated.
Professor Timothy Holbrook was among several Georgia attorneys asked by the Daily Report to comment on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that extended workplace discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community. "My initial reaction is surprise both at the outcome and at the vote. I thought the court would reject protections for the LBGT community," Holbrook said. "We now have national, non-discrimination protection for LBGTQ persons. It has always been the concern that our protections were patchwork depending on the states and cities. That’s no longer the case."
Sometimes, significant impact arises in the unobserved work of the Supreme Court, even while it is in session. The court often issues orders that appear to deal with procedural issues. But even those seemingly innocuous decisions can have significant impact. Such a scenario arose during the October 2018 Supreme Court term as it relates to the ability of transgender persons to serve in the military.
For the second time this term, the U.S. Supreme Court has asked for the solicitor general's views on a case involving Section 101 patent eligibility. The high court's decisions in the past few years have led to the rejection of thousands of patents, mostly in software but also in biopharma. "I think two CVSGs suggests that the court is concerned about the way the doctrine is developing at the Federal Circuit and the broader impact" that its decisions have had, particularly Mayo Collaborative v. Prometheus Laboratories and CLS Bank v. Alice, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Timothy Holbrook told the National Law Journal.
The University of Florida went to court to defend patent rights for a machine that compiles patient vital statistics and displays them. Its arguments included asserting sovereign immunity. The latter defense was weak, as was the claim that the invention deserved a patent, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Timothy Holbrook told Bloomberg. "The ruling on patentability `shows that taking something by hand and automating it with a computer is not going to be patent-eligible unless there is some technological advance in the process of automating it,' Holbrook said. 'An unsurprising outcome.'"
Super Bowl LIII will bring a lot of money to Atlanta-area business on its coattails. However, "The NFL has a history of smacking non-sponsor companies that it believes infringe on the lucrative trademark of its biggest show," says an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story. Non-affiliated companies who use Super Bowl images and label themselves "official," might be in trouble. Some use of the words "Super Bowl" are clear-cut violations, some depend on which company or organization is using them, said Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Tim Holbrook.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to announce rules that will attempt to define gender strictly and unchangeably based on one's genitals at birth, Professor Tim Holbrook writes for CNN. But try as they might, "the Trump administration cannot eliminate lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people with a stroke of the pen. Moreover, this proposal is contrary to science and to the law," Holbrook says.
Except for a few cases, the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court docket may not yield much in the way of IP law, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells the National Law Journal. In last year's Oil States Energy Services LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, the court explicitly said it wasn't deciding whether other plaintiffs who obtained their patents before the America Invents Act could bring a similar challenge. Holbrook views that as a signal. "I do think that they'll take a retroactivity case because they signaled it so much," he said. "You don't make that statement unless you think it actually needs to be addressed."
The Supreme Court's decision in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., which had had clear implications for patent law, "leaves to future cases a variety of important issues," Professor Tim Holbrook says. The court's decision was a narrow one, "but the opinion will likely will work as a roadmap for future litigants to raise them," Holbrook writes in a recent opinion article.
When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, many believed the court would answer the vexing question of which policy interest prevails when nondiscrimination laws and religious liberties collide. But the court did no such thing. Instead, the justices effectively punted, leaving that question unanswered.
In 2014, digital music downloads and streaming subscriptions overtook CD sales for the first time. The development raised a pointed question. Who owns what in the digital age?
"Normally when a celebrity comes out, there is widespread celebration in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. Then there's Kevin Spacey. The LGBTQ's response to his coming out? Condemnation. And rightfully so," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for CNN. "Whatever the truth of this situation, it is a portrayal of what sexual assault and harassment is about: the powerful taking advantage of the vulnerable."
In memo aimed at dismantling discrimination protections for transgender persons, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets the law wrong, Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. "The attorney general and Department of Justice do not get to decide what 'is a conclusion of law.' The courts do. And the courts have recognized that federal law does protect transgender people as a form of discrimination based on sex," he says.
This idea of "forum shopping", picking a court that maximizes the chance you will win your case, is generally frowned upon. Such variability generally offends our sense of justice and fairness. Such offense is particularly the case in patent law. Why should my patent rights depend on what court I sue in, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted me a patent on my invention that covers the entire United States?
A lawsuit that could have implications for how the government takes private property is being weighed by the Georgia Supreme Court, and the case between a Marietta property owner and the city will determine whether protections laid out in the state's 2006 Landowner's Bill of Rights statute are mandatory. The city argues they are not. "It is an interesting issue, about whether these rules are simply aspirational guidelines that municipalities should follow versus actual rules," said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "What's the point of having this Bill of Rights if municipalities are free to ignore it?"
If a Supreme Court Justice steps down in the next few years, and President Donald Trump appoints another, there undoubtedly will be challenges to Obergefell v. Hodges, even if Trump views same-sex marriage as settled, Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. "A new justice could easily vote to overrule Obergefell. But the chief justice's vote in Pavan may be a harbinger of a willingness to protect the hard-earned rights of marriage equality. At least it is a glimmer of hope to the LGBTQ community."
The Supreme Court took up six patent cases--8 percent of its docket last term--and reversed the Federal Circuit on each. Professor Tim Holbrook was quoted by the National Law Journal on the issue. He doesn't think the unanimous reversals are a black eye on the Federal Circuit as much as they reflect a generalist Supreme Court trying to speak with one voice to bolster its credibility with the specialized appellate court. The large number of cert grants reflect a Supreme Court that's both interested in patent law and concerned about the Federal Circuit as an institution, he said.
"The Trump administration showed its hand on Friday, when the Department of Justice withdrew its request that a Texas district court lift its stay in a case dealing with access to bathrooms for transgender students," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for CNN. "The action by the DOJ in Texas on its face seems minor. In fact, it is quite revealing. LGBTQ rights will not be defended at the federal level. Those in favor of LGBTQ equality will need to defend themselves against efforts in states to ban the use of restrooms and to embrace so-called religious-liberty bills. The fight is now our own. We won't be able to look to this administration for help."
An Arkansas Supreme Court case that questions whether a city can pass laws that exceed a state's existing antidiscrimination protections could be a bellwether on how clashes between liberal cities and conservative states are resolved, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook told the Wall Street Journal. "I think at present it's isolated, but it has the potential to grow," Holbrook said of the case's impact. if the state wins, he says, courts elsewhere might also argue that the need for uniformity across cities and counties outweighs cities' and counties' right to pass their own antidiscrimination protections.
On Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. "This is the first time the Supreme Court has addressed design patents in more than a century," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for The Conversation. "This generally sleepy area of intellectual property has awoken. And, reading the tea leaves from the oral argument, it seems that Samsung will likely win at the Supreme Court." Holbrook joined a brief that says Samsung should not have to give up all the profits that resulted from swiping some of Apple's design features. "Based on how the oral argument went, I'd wager the Supreme Court thinks that outcome was wrong, too," he says.
Professor Tim Holbrook spoke with law.com about what promises to be a blockbuster term for intellectual property cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. There are four IP cases on the docket and potentially more coming, Scott Graham writes. In Samsung Electronics v. Apple, the court will address design patent damages for the first time in more than 100 years. Also on the docket: Life Technologies v. Promega, where the federal circuit held that supplying a single component from the United States for a multicomponent invention manufactured abroad can give rise to induced infringement. Holbrook wrote an amicus brief in that case, and expects a reversal.
Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook says Epipen's allusion to the drug supply chain and health insurance companies as part of the reason behind its recent price hikes is difficult to understand. "I don't find it terribly legitimate because it's not clear to me how different that is than in the past," he tells Medpage Today. "Maybe the Affordable Care Act created this dynamic in some way--that may explain some pressure on the price but I don't think it explains that significant of a jump."
Fineman, other Emory Law faculty recognized for scholarly impact
Professor Tim Holbrook writes for The Conversation on the forces behind the rapidly escalating price for an EpiPen. The patent system is not to blame, he says. A lack of competition and the FDA's regulatory role are. "At present, companies will charge prices that the market can bear for these drugs," he writes. "The FDA is in a unique position to act. It should revisit its role in this regulatory structure to ensure it is striking the appropriate balance between protecting patients from flawed drugs and ensuring drugs get to market to reduce prices."
In Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, the Supreme Court treated the USPTO like any other administrative agency, generally deferring to how the agency decided to regulate proceedings before it. It curtailed most review of those decisions and embraced the agency's discretion to adopt them. Thus, Cuozzo can be viewed as the court confirming a shift in power away from the federal circuit and to the USPTO, particularly under the America Invents Act.
Robert A. Schapiro, Dean and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and Timothy R. Holbrook, Professor of Law comment on recent US Supreme Court moves.
North Carolina's refusal to back down on its "bathroom law" requiring transgender citizens to use restrooms aligned with their birth gender has led to a rare drawing of lines in the sand, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook told the Wall Street Journal. Republican leaders say they will not respond to recent notice by the U.S. Justice Department that the law is a civil rights violation.
An North Carolina law that halts antidiscrimination protections for LGBT citizens led to PayPal canceling its plans to open a large operations center in Charlotte. The governor says the law was meant to prevent transgender persons from using bathrooms of the opposite gender in schools and public restrooms. But the law goes much further, says Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook, including the right to sue for wrongful termination on the basis of discrimination. "It effectively strips away any protection for the LGBT community across the state of North Carolina," he said, adding he is "cautiously optimistic" federal courts will eventually strike down the law.
Paypal had planned to open an operations center in Charlotte, N.C., and bring 400 jobs to the state. But after N.C. passed a law stipulating that transgender individuals must use restrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, the company killed those plans. A Christian Science Monitor story referenced a CNN op-ed by Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook, which notes a religious freedom law passed in Indiana last year cost the state about $60 million in tourist and convention revenue. "Both Georgia and North Carolina have marketed themselves as being good for business," Holbrook said. "Indiana apparently was not a big enough canary in the coal mine."
The Georgia General Assembly just passed a religious freedom bill which resembles the one Indiana passed last year. "That bill has cost Indiana at least $60 million in tourist revenue," Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. But Georgia's bill is worse, and there's still time for the governor to veto it. "The bill, if signed into law, could have significant economic consequences for Atlanta," he says.
For more than a decade Coca-Cola has sought trademark rights for the word "zero" in relation to beverages--especially soft drinks. The company has a decent shot at winning, but it's not altogether clear, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells the AJC. Numbers can be trademarked in some situations, Holbrook said. "It's harder to win trademark protection for a word that is descriptive (like the word 'beer' for the name of a beer) than it is for one that is merely suggestive and requires a further leap in thinking," AJC reporter Matt Kempner writes.
Khan Academy's move to patent a testing method in its online educational programs is a commentary on how much the system has changed in recent years, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells Inside Higher Ed. "It shows how the patent system has reached into areas that historically the ordinary person have thought patents should not belong in," he said. "When you think patents, you think pharmaceuticals. You think rockets. You don't think education."
Tiffany & Co. is taking on Costco to protect its distinctive six-prong engagement rings, Fortune magazine reports. Tiffany says Costco advertised its own rings with the word "Tiffany" and has sued. Costco has argued the term is generic. Professor Tim Holbrook says the company is vigorously defending its uniqueness. "They definitely wanted a decision out there that says, 'No, you can't genericize their name'," Holbrook said. "It's about setting an example that Tiffany will not allow other parties to use its name in this way."
While 3-D printers are a fantastic invention, their growing use presents a real problem for U.S. patent holders, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for The Conversation. He argues the patent system is ill-equipped to deal with the evolving technology. "There is a great irony here," he says. "One of the greatest innovations of our time may ultimately undermine a key engine of innovation, the patent system."
When it comes to patent law, it's all quiet on the U.S. Supreme Court front, Scott Graham writes in law.com. So far there's not a single patent case--or trademark or copyright, for that matter--on its 2015-16 docket. Some patent law experts believe the court is taking a break from patent law after a period of exceptional activity, including a record six decisions in 2013-14. "I don't think we'll see six" this term, said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "I wouldn't be surprised if we saw none."
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board will run a gauntlet of appellate challenges over the next month to its fundamental structure and even its very existence, Scott Graham writes in the Recorder. Stakes are high as a San Jose attorney brings a constitutional challenge to inter partes review to the Federal Circuit. He argues that actions to cancel validly issued patents must be conducted in Article III courts, with access to a jury. Professor Timothy Holbrook said he would be stunned if the Federal Circuit accepted that argument. The court doesn't recognize a Seventh Amendment right for decisions on patent validity, he said. A declaratory judgment action on validity doesn't trigger a jury trial right, for example, if a patent holder is seeking an injunction.
Congress is on the verge of passing patent reform legislation which contains myriad provisions: standards for pleading a case far beyond other forms of litigation, making the loser pay in patent litigation and limiting discovery until the court has interpreted what the patent covers. There seems to be much enthusiasm, with bills making it out of committee in both the House and Senate in a surprising show of bipartisanship. Except, we don't need it, at least not yet.
Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook discusses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized same-sex marriage, and the patchwork of state and local laws that still impact the civil and legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens.
Justice Kennedy eloquently expressed the significance of marriage to the LGBT community, and with today's decision "the doors to marriage opened for gays and lesbians across the country," says Emory Law professor Tim Holbrook for CNN. "This is a historic moment that brings much joy and tears to LGBT people all across America."
Today's outcome in Obergefell v Hodges, which rules that bans on same-sex marriages are unconstitutional, was expected by many. What wasn't clear, says Tim Holbrook for The Conversation, was the reasoning the court would use.
Today's landmark Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage settles the question of marriage as a fundamental right, and also shows the importance of judicial confirmation hearings, Emory Law professors say. Read comments by Dean Robert Schapiro and Professors Tim Holbrook and Michael Perry.
As we await the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Professor Tim Holbrook talked with Creative Loafing about the effects of Georgia's present 2004 law, which bans such unions. Georgia LGBT couples would still have to travel to states where same-sex marriage is legal to marry, and when they return their marriages wouldn't be recognized. That affects issues including ease of adoption and medical visitation rights, for example.
In an op-ed for CNN, Emory University Law professor Timothy Holbrook counters the view that the opponents of same-sex marriage feel they are being "bullied" into silence.
Many states are using the laws to carve out exceptions to allow Christians to deny services to same-sex couples, said Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook. "The timing is beyond a coincidence," he said. "We are having an interest in RFRA at the time same-sex marriage is coming forward." Holbrook suggests that a "fix" for the Indiana law would be the passage of a nondiscrimination law. Or, at the very least, an exception written into the religious freedom bill that protects from such discrimination.
When Indiana Gov. Michael Pence signed his state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), he apparently did not anticipate the resulting uproar. Many of Indiana's businesses fear that the law could be used to allow store owners to deny service to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons.
Associate Dean and Professor Timothy Holbrook will be honored March 3 at Emory University's 23rd Annual Pride Awards, as the Chestnut LGBT Person of the Year.
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for gay couples in Alabama to wed, making it the 37th state where same-sex marriages are legal and offering the latest signal the court appears headed toward overturning bans nationwide. "I think there are at least five, possibly six, justices" who will rule in favor of gay marriage, said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "The order today doesn't do anything to convince me otherwise."
Tim Holbrook, a professor at Emory Law, said he thinks it's possible, though unlikely, that Chief Justice Roberts would vote with liberal members of the Supreme Court bench.
Every federal district court, save one in Louisiana, had found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage (as have four federal courts of appeal). This string of victories, however, came to a halt on Nov. 7, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, on a 2-1 vote, became the first federal appellate court to uphold same-sex marriage bans.
Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook received the Outstanding Service to the Stonewall Community Award. Holbrook has written many opinion pieces in national newspapers about same-sex marriage and wrote a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of former NFL stars Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings and Brendan Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens urging the Supreme Court to sack California's Proposition 8.
On Monday, the Supreme Court did something no one expected: It refused to hear any of the cases striking down same-sex marriage bans. Most observers thought the court would either grant review or delay any action to see whether any lower appellate courts would find such bans constitutional. But it didn't wait and, by declining to hear the cases, allowed same-sex marriages to begin in Utah, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Indiana and Virginia. In fact, wedding bells have already started to ring in Virginia.
The Supreme Court's decision to decline to hear the marriage equality cases was quite surprising.
The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take the same-sex marriage cases on September 29, a mere 15 months since they overturned the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. That decision created a deluge of cases which have found that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. The issues in marriage equality differ significantly from those in the abortion debate. With marriage, the answer is binary -- either same-sex couples can marry or they can't.
It's open season on software patents. That's the message federal courts have sent in recent weeks after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that tackled the question of whether--and when--computer programs can qualify for intellectual-property protection. The trend represents a worst-case scenario for patent-licensing firms, which their detractors call "patent trolls."
Executive, judicial and legislative branches are trying to untangle the web of technological innovation.
Members of the Emory Law faculty provide their analyses of the Supreme Court's 2014 term decisions.
LGBT legal rights should not be contingent on biology or immutability. And, contrary to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's insinuation, sexual orientation is not like a disease.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six federal trademarks registered to the Washington Redskins.
Recently, Lambda Legal challenged Georgia's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in federal court, arguing that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution.
Anyone with an iPhone loves how easy it is to use one. At present, these tools are protected by patents. But things could change dramatically.
The White House called on Congress to pass legislation to combat patent trolls, known less pejoratively as "patent assertion entities."
A sleepy court is about to get its turn in the limelight. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appels in Denver, one of the nation's 13th federal appeals courts, doesn't have firebrand judges and isn't routinely reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
With six appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, President Barack Obama has reshaped what some patent lawyers consider the most important court in the world.
Few areas in the law have garnered more attention in recent years than that relating to patents. What will 2014 bring? Lots more news, in all likelihood.
Over the past few decades there has been a rapid increase in the number of lawsuits over intellectual-property infringements.
The quick pace of technology and the complexities of the digital world are forcing changes in all areas of intellectual property.
Todd M. Hughes became the first openly gay person confirmed as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
To many, the words "Gay Christian" are, at best, in tension with each other. For others, particularly those on the political right, those two words are mutually exclusive: being gay or supporting LGBT rights is utterly inconsistent with being Christian.
The Supreme Court offered a Solomonic decision regarding whether human genes constitute patent-eligible subject matter.
Timothy Holbrook will serve on a panel discussion of the Supreme Court's Marriage Cases.
A U.S. Supreme Court clash over the patenting of human genes left several justices searching for a middle ground in a case with the potential to redefine rights in the biotechnology and agricultural industries.
Emory Law professor Timothy Holbrook filed a Supreme Court Brief supporting same-sex marital rights.
Timothy Holbrook will receive a Distinguished Service Medal from the Linn Inn Alliance.