Supreme Court Holds Synthetic DNA Patentable

In June the US Supreme Court held in Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., that isolated segments of naturally occurring DNA are not eligible for patent. Although human intervention is required to isolate naturally occurring DNA, that DNA segment is still naturally occurring and therefore ineligible for protection under US patent law. Synthetic DNA was held to be patentable.

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Predictive Policing and Potential Constitutional Concerns

Some police departments are implementing a crime mapping program that uses criminal data to predict future areas of specific crimes. A report generated by this software coupled with an officer's observations may be sufficient to stop and search a suspected criminal. With the advent of real time advertising and now predictive policing, the movie the Minority Report no longer seems to be science fiction. The privacy and civil liberty concerns raised by this technology will more than certainly result in constitutional challenges.

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Can A Copyright Be Validly Transferred by Simply Accepting On-line Terms?

A recent 4th Circuit case considered whether a copyright can be validly transferred by simply clicking "yes" to a website's terms of use.  In this case an online real estate site required users to accept the site's terms of use (TOU) prior to uploading photos.  The TOU noted that all images become the "exclusive property" of the site and that the uploader agrees to "irrevocably assign" the image to the site free of any restrictions. The site owner, Metropolitan Regional, filed for a preliminary injunction to prevent the original copyright owner from posting photos on its own site.  The district court agreed with Metropolitan and the 4th Circuit affirmed. The question of whether the clicking of "yes" to accept the TOU constitutes a valid E-signature that properly transfers copyrights will be decided in the near future.  

See Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. v. American Home Realty Network, Inc. for the 4th Circuit opinion.