Gibbons Law Alert
A group of brand owners has filed another complaint against eleven Alibaba and Taobao entities for claims including direct and contributory trademark counterfeiting and violations of the RICO statute. At issue is when and to what extent a service provider can be held liable for alleged trademark counterfeiting taking place on an online platform.
In the latest development in the litigation over the environmental cleanup of the Fox River in northeastern Wisconsin, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin has found that NCR Corporation’s liability for the remediation of a section of the river is divisible—not joint and several under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The Fox River is a Superfund site contaminated primarily with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from historic paper manufacturing and recycling facilities along the river. This opinion is believed to be the first such judicial decision that has ruled in favor of a divisibility defense since the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v United States. Whether it is an indication of how Courts may address divisibility and apportionment of cleanup costs at complex sediment sites and other sites in the future remains to be seen.
An employee handbook containing policies prohibiting (1) the disclosure of confidential company information, including personnel data, (2) use of the employer’s logo or trademark except as authorized by the company and (3) obstruction and interference with government investigations, including a requirement to notify the company’s human resources representatives or law department and to obtain approval to release information for a government investigation was found to violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) by an NLRB Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) in Macy’s Inc., JD(NY)-21-15. According to the ALJ’s decision, Macy’s employees when reading the policies could reasonably construe such policies to restrict their rights under Section 7 of the NLRA to engage in protected concerted activity for their mutual aid or protection.
Recently, the Supreme Court adopted proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, that barring any modification by congressional action, may eliminate the difference in pleading standards between patent infringement actions and all other federal actions. However, such standardization of pleading requirements may be short lived in view of the reintroduction of the Innovation Act, H.R. 9, in the House of Representatives, which proposes heightened pleading standard for patent infringement actions.
The statute of limitations governing breach of fiduciary duty claims brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) provides that such claims are untimely if not brought within 6 years after “the date of the last action which constituted the breach or violation” or “in the case of an omission, the latest date on which the fiduciary could have cured the breach or violation” (29 U.S.C. § 1113). In Tibble v. Edison International, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ERISA’s statute of limitations did not bar plaintiffs from pursuing their breach of fiduciary duty claim arising out of investments made by their employer’s 401(k) plan, although the investments were made more than 6 years before plaintiffs filed their claim. The Court held that ERISA plan fiduciaries have an ongoing duty to monitor plan investments and to remove imprudent investments. As long as the alleged breach of this continuing duty occurred within 6 years of suit, a claim challenging a fiduciary’s failure to act will be timely. The Court rejected the argument that only “a significant change in circumstances” triggers the duty to remove imprudent investments.
In a recent precedential decision, the Third Circuit, in Bohus, et al. v. Restaurant.com, held that the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Shelton decision — responding to a question of law certified by the Third Circuit as to the proper interpretation of the Truth in Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act (“TCCWNA”) — may be applied prospectively, thus defeating the class claims and leaving only two individual claims for a $100 penalty.
A recent district court decision has held that patent eligibility arguments not raised in invalidity contentions served pursuant to local patent rules are waived. In Good Technology Corporation v. MobileIron, Inc., No. 5:12-cv-5826, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied Defendant MobileIron, Inc.’s motion for judgment on the pleadings based on patent eligibility arguments that were not disclosed in either original or amended invalidity contentions.
In recent years, families and friends of terminally ill patients have launched highly visible social media campaigns to secure access to potentially life-saving medicine, before those experimental drugs are approved. Pharmaceutical companies that are developing these investigational medicines often face difficult ethical and business relations dilemmas: there are limited exceptions for non-approved drug dissemination and the costs and consequences attendant on the exceptions can make either choice unpalatable. Companies and caregivers alike have struggled with how to fairly provide access to experimental drugs without negatively impacting long term drug development or approval.
In Byrd v. Aaron’s Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit added to, and clarified, its “quartet” of ascertainability cases to resolve the “apparent confusion in the invocation and application of ascertainability in this Circuit.” The plaintiffs in Byrd brought a class action claiming violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 because laptop computers had “spyware” installed, which had captured a wide array of personal information from the users including photographs and screenshots of websites visited. Adopting the recommendation of the Magistrate Judge, the District Court denied class certification for failure to establish ascertainability, finding that the proposed classes were both “underinclusive” (i.e., did not include all individuals whose information was gathered) and overinclusive (not every computer user had data intercepted), and that it was insufficient to propose that “household members” be identified by public records. “Because the District Court confused ascertainability with other relevant inquiries under Rule 23,” it “erred in determining that the Byrds’ proposed classes were not ascertainable.”
On April 29, 2015, Senators Grassley, Leahy, Corny, Schumer, Lee, Hatch, and Klobuchar introduced another patent reform bill known as the Protecting Talent and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015 (“PATENT Act”). This bill includes many provisions similar to the previously introduced Innovation Act of 2015, but takes a slightly different approach on some key issues.