The following is a statement from Curt Levey, the Committee for Justice's president and one of the attorneys on the brief...

Copyright cases do not call for a free-ranging search for the best copyright policy, but rather depends solely on statutory interpretation. After all, the proper course is not to bend and twist the Act’s terms in an effort to produce a just outcome, but to apply the law as it stands and leave to Congress the task of deciding whether the Copyright Act needs an upgrade. The audience for Google’s concerns, therefore, is across the street.

Ashley Baker and Neil Chilson discuss the implications for data security under recently-enacted privacy laws. Although data privacy regulations may shield your data from companies that seek to use it for commercial purposes, certain legal requirements found in these regulations can leave your sensitive information vulnerable to bad actors.

Levey said that it’s highly unusual for courts to be involved in impeachment proceedings. However, in extreme circumstances, legal and constitutional grounds might exist, he said. “This would be an extreme example, but if the House began sending articles of impeachment to force a Senate trial once per month, at some point courts would say this is unreasonable,” Levey said. “This would be unreasonable abuse, and tying up the executive branch. It could interfere with separation of powers.”

The recent Texas state verdict that Title Source misappropriated proprietary data from former collaborator HouseCanary underscores the rise of trade secrets lawsuits along with growing settlements and jury awards, says Ashley Baker of the Committee for Justice.

The Committee for Justice filed comments to the SEC regarding the Proposed Amendments to Exemptions from the Proxy Rules for Proxy Voting Advice. We believe that Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule change regarding proxy advisory firms is a positive step towards implementing much-needed reforms. The rules governing the proxy system need to be clarified and modernized for the benefit of investors, public companies, and the U.S. financial services industry as a whole. Therefore, the SEC should implement the proposed rule.

Ashley Baker discusses the impact of two recent Supreme Court decisions that have produced a “sea change in intellectual property litigation” as well as a “a serious challenge to software patentability” on the issue of exposing confidential trade secrets.

For trade secrets law, 2019 was a formative year for both public knowledge and litigation trends. Due to extensive media coverage of Huawei Technologies Co.’s alleged intellectual property theft and trade secrets disputes between large American companies including Uber Technologies Inc. and Waymo LLC, the public has become more aware of the once-obscure area of intellectual property law.

Contrary to popular belief, Citizens United did not let loose the dogs of corporate political warfare. As Committee for Justice President Curt Levey explained, this decision left most of the limits on political spending in place. "The total ban on corporate contributions to candidates, political parties, and political action committees remains in place," he explained.