And lastly, my fave topic of all: SEPs. Last night, @JusticeATR filed a letter with the 5th Circuit.
Some background: the Trump admin DOJ AAG Makan Delrahim had strong views on the intersection of antitrust and IP, views that contradicted those held by the Obama DOJ.
Under Delrahim, DOJ weighed in on a number of private #antitrust cases with "Statements of Interest" expressing views on antitrust-IP. One such case involved Continental Automotive, which had sued Avancii a patent company that owns SEPs needed for connected car tech
The district court dismissed the suit and it's now on appeal at the 5th Circuit. In a letter to the 5th Circuit last night, DOJ said it isn't planning to submit an amicus reupping the views it expressed at the district court
Translation: without explicitly disavowing its earlier "statement of interest," @JusticeATR is suggesting the 5th Circuit not rely on that earlier filing as representative of its current views.
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Apple’s Michael Schmid, who works with game developers, will be back up on the stand this AM. After he’s done, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, will testify followed by Dominique Hanssens, Apple’s marketing/survey expert
YGR says she works every weekend during trial because she has "hundreds of other cases" and those do not end at the end of the trial day.
Doren returns to the sexual terms. There are categories of things we don't want on our store like pornography, Schiller says. When you have categories of apps, like dating apps, developers will try to find where the line is. "It's not an easy task," he says.
It would be inappropriate for Apple to reject dating apps because of the people who use them, Schiller said.
Nudity is allowed for medical apps, but pornography is not permitted, Schiller says. "It's been a very difficult topic," he says of porn. Apple sets rules like the display of genitalia to help the app reviewers, Schiller says.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled #epicvapple coverage. Apple's Phil Schiller will be back up on the stand this morning. Expect him to have a tougher reception today as Epic's Katherine Forrest gets her chance at questioning.
If Schiller finishes today (he might or might not depending on the cross examination), Apple's Michael Schmid, head of game business development for the App Store, is up next.
@OversightDems Among the findings, Abbvie knew Humira, a blockbuster arthritis drug, would face biosimilar competition in 2017, so it took steps to delay that until 2023. The company's internal documents estimate that cost the U.S. health care system $19B
Abbvie has sought or obtained 250 patents related to Humira, the report found. The company has invested a lot of its R&D into a Humira “enhancements” program to protect against biosimilar competition.
Day 11 in #epicvapple starts in about an hour. Today's in-court reporters are @eringriffith and @mslopatto. Harvard's James Mickens, Epic's security expert, will resume his testimony this AM. After he's done, Apple's Phil Schiller will be up.
YGR says she'd really like to finish the case next Monday (me too, your honor, me too). Apple and Epic's lawyers promise they will be done next Monday. YGR says she doesn't want the closing proceeding to take more than 3 hours, 90 minutes for each side.
The lawyers are now arguing about whether Apple's expert Loren Hitt should be allowed to change some of his written testimony. Epic says Hitt is changing his opinion in light of their cross examination last week.