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Novartis had a good day in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals this week. It’s Alcon unit successfully fought off Apotex Inc. from marketing a generic version of the drug, Patanol. The Patanol patent expires in 2015 and until then, Apotex is not allowed to sell the eye medication. While Federal Circuit invalidated some parts of the patent, it held other aspects of the patent valid. Under the obviousness test, the court essentially asks whether the invention was obvious, in light of the information known to a “person having ordinary skill in the art....

Trial court’s denial of district attorney’s motion requesting that defendant pay full restitution to the victim is vacated and remanded as the trial court erred in failing to include in the restitution order the amount that would be accepted as full payment for the medical services to the victim which, however, is less than the amount billed for those services demanded by the district attorney. Read People v. Duong, No. A124640 [HTML]...

A juvenile’s petition for a writ of mandate to compel the juvenile court to vacate its order refusing to apply ICWA is granted as, because ICWA sets the minimum standards for the protection of Indian children with respect to their tribal relationships, California law imposing a higher standard is not inconsistent with the purpose of the federal law, and is not preempted. Read R.R. v. Sup. Ct., No. C060573 [HTML]...

An amici brief, written by more than a baker’s dozen of law school professors, was filed in support of Take 2 and Rockstar Games in the appeal filed by Lindsay Lohan over the use of her likeness/image without her permission in Grand Theft Auto V. The case, which was filed back in 2014, has a rather storied past. Basically, Lohan and Karen Gravano claim that characters in the popular video game are based on them....

It’s already mid-January. You know what that means: you’ve probably already broken your New Year’s resolutions. Why is it that every year we set out to better ourselves – but every year we fail? Maybe there’s truth to the old saying that old habits die hard. This week’s edition of T.G.I.FindLaw! focuses on some colorful characters that either clearly broke their resolutions – or got into trouble for trying them out....

Back for more introspection and regret? Fantastic! For the second half of this trip down law school regret lane, we thought we’d focus on the things we wish we’d done while in law school. Take what you will from these parting words of our ten regrets about going to law school: Really nothing in law school is better than hands-on experience as a lawyer. Unfortunately, most of law school is legal theory instead of actual practice – that part is theoretically filled by internships and summer associate positions....

Kids are weird. They eat dirt, obsess over dinosaurs, and think there are monsters under the bed. But many kids are weird in the most adorable ways. Take Grayson Dobra, for instance. This Louisiana tot decided to celebrate his second birthday with a personal injury lawyer-themed party. Yep, young Grayson is obsessed with ambulance chasers – one ambulance chaser in particular: New Orleans personal injury lawyer Morris Bart, whose commercials have been airing on Louisiana T....

Call it a case of piercing the blogging veil. A University of Miami law professor is suing the popular online legal tabloid, Above the Law, for false light, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement. But before you lock up your keyboards, toss out your cordless mice, and renounce online social media as a form of communication, it may be worth your blogging dime to take a look closer look at the lawsuit....

Classes at Arizona Summit Law School are out. Forever. At least it’s the beginning of the end at the Phoenix institution, and the law school shows little sign of coming back. Officials have cancelled fall classes, and are working on transfers for the remaining students. About one-third of them already had plans to transfer, leaving about 70 students scrambling one week before the fall semester was supposed to start. Now they are getting a lesson in how to think on their feet....

Two men accused of brutally beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow in 2011 pleaded guilty Thursday and were sentenced to prison. Stow, 45, of Santa Cruz, California, suffered brain damage after Louie Sanchez, 31, attacked him from behind and continued to punch and kick Stow while he was on the ground, Reuters reports. The other defendant, Marvin Norwood, 33, assisted Sanchez by keeping Stow’s friends from helping the man as he was pummeled on the ground....

In 2015, the federal Office of Personnel Management, which handles employment matters on behalf of the government, suffered a serious data breach that resulted in the theft of over 22 million people’s information. That data breach led to a class action lawsuit being filed on behalf of all those whom had their data stolen against the OPM for failing to safeguard their data. The federal court has just dismissed this class action and has essentially invited the defeated plaintiffs to appeal....

Maybe in your youth you had a good fake identification that allowed you to get into bars when you were underage. It seemed cool, but actually it was a crime – passing off a document or item as government-issued is against the law. Criminal Crafts Amanda Schweickert last week was stopped on the road, according to the Huffington Post. She had a yellow and blue license plate made by hand that said Empire State and bore the numbers FYG-3925, unevenly penned and written on cardboard....

In plaintiff’s employment discrimination and retaliation suit against defendant-agency for being suspended as an administrative law judge on three occasions subsequent to her filing a charge with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging that travel assignments were made discriminatorily, judgment in favor of plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) the doctrine of res judicata does not preclude a state employee from pursuing both internal administrative civil service remedies and those available under the Fair Employment Housing Act; 2) although the doctrine of collateral estoppel may act to preclude a retaliation claim if issues decided in the administrative action eliminate a necessary element of the employee’s case, in this case, the administrative agency’s findings do not eliminate a necessary element of plaintiff’s retaliation action; and 3) there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict....

Maybe you fell in love with law school or have always seen yourself as an academic. Perhaps you just want a well-paying job with easy hours and great job security. Or you could just love The Paper Chase (which inspired the career of a Harvard Law dean) and How to Get Away With Murder (which inspires us every Thursday). Whatever the motivation, you want to be a law professor. Who can blame you?...

Leave it to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club to bring the skin to the street. The chain’s San Francisco outpost is stirring up trouble in one of the city’s more residential neighborhoods. The culprit? A mobile strip club. On Friday and Saturday nights, mostly-naked women can be seen dancing behind the truck’s Plexiglas walls. But on the driver’s days off? It’s being parked outside a library, which also happens to be a few blocks from an elementary school....

A federal prison inmate is suing Taco Bell over its new menu item, the Doritos Locos Tacos. But Gary Cole, who’s serving a 25-year sentence at a super-max prison in Florence, Colorado, isn’t looking to get his hands on some of these ingenious tacos with hard shells made from Nacho Cheese Doritos Chips. Instead, Cole claims in a federal lawsuit that he is the inventor of the Doritos taco shells, and that someone has stolen his now hugely successful idea, the Dallas Observer reports....

A new year brings new email scams and frauds in the D.C. District Courts and state courts. In addition to emails containing a virus or fake cases, individuals are being targeted with jury scams and arrest warrant scams. The scams tell people that if they don’t pay up, they’ll be arrested, according to the U.S. District Court for D.C.’s website. Although you may be having a snow day today, you’re probably still checking your email....

In a sex and age discrimination action, summary judgment for defendant is reversed where: 1) defendant failed to carry its burden to show that plaintiff did not timely contact an EEO counselor and thus did not exhaust his administrative remedies; and 2) plaintiff did not fail to respond to defendant’s exhaustion argument. Read Miller v. Hersman, No. 08-5494 Appellate Information Argued November 17, 2009 Decided February 5, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Henderson...

In proceedings arising from three citations by Cal-OSHA concerning unsafe practices regarding metal embossing machines and imposition of $25,600 in fines, plaintiff’s petition for writ of administrative mandate challenging a decision by defendant-Board denying plaintiff’s request for reconsideration of the dismissal of its appeals is affirmed where: 1) the Board did not exceed its powers in denying reconsideration and petitioner’s claim that only a three-member panel can act as the Board is rejected; and 2) because citations are critical to proceedings before the Board, there was no error in the Board’s ruling that plaintiff’s failure to provide the citations was fatal to its appeals....

The job market is tough for lawyers but if you’ve been convicted of terrorism at any time in the past you may as well just give up on being admitted to the Bar. If you think this advice is just too obvious you’ve probably got a good handle on the whole ‘moral character’ thing. But not everyone is so prepared. Meet Parminder Singh Saini. His story isn’t new but it should make feel better about your own chances of being admitted to the Bar come November....