New Developments in the World of Section 230
Podcast - Developments in FDA & DOJ Regulation and Enforcement of Manufacturer Communications
The Fourth Circuit has found that a West Virginia state law restricting how attorneys can solicit clients in pharmaceutical and medical device cases does not violate the First Amendment. At the end of April, a three-judge...more
Judge Richard Seeborg of the Northern District of California recently ruled in favor of Miyoko’s Kitchen in a suit concerning Miyoko’s labeling of its plant-based spread as “vegan butter.” In doing so, Judge Seeborg...more
On January 22, 2021, a divided Ninth Circuit panel ruled that a nutritional guide could constitute commercial speech subject to the Lanham Act. The Lanham Act is best known for being the primary federal trademark statute...more
Food and beverage advertising, like other forms of speech, is usually entitled to First Amendment protection – even if it may not always enjoy the same caliber of protection as, for example, journalism or political speech. ...more
WHAT IS, AND IS NOT, ADVERTISING? At the outset it is important to understand what is, and is not, considered to be advertising or an advertisement under U.S. law. Generally speaking, as applied to any product, be it beer,...more
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a District Court’s decision to strike down a state law that placed severe restrictions on alcohol advertising. For example, under the law, Joe’s Bar could run the ad, “Drink...more
Barry M. Benjamin, partner in the New York office and chair of Kilpatrick Townsend’s Advertising and Marketing group, was honored to present at a recent Practicing Law Institute Bridge the Gap program discussing legal issues...more
It takes more than a lot of huffing and puffing to blow down the ever-rising high costs of prescription drugs, the Trump administration has found. Two defeats happened last week: officials were forced to pull a plan to curb...more
CMS Regulation - District Court Strikes Down Rule Mandating Price Disclosure in DTC Pharmaceutical Advertisements - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), together with the Centers for Medicare &...more
In follow-up to our previous post, the pharmaceutical industry gained a win on July 8th when a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s rule that would have required drugmakers to include list prices for drugs in...more
Can an en banc decision of a federal appellate court be controversial even when every single active judge of that court agrees with the outcome? The answer is emphatically yes, as confirmed by the Ninth Circuit’s January 31,...more
On January 31, an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a unanimous ruling in a commercial speech case, American Beverage Assoc., et al., v. City and County of San Francisco. ...more
In an en banc decision issued yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed U.S. District Court Judge Edward M. Chen's denial of a preliminary injunction in an action challenging a San Francisco ordinance requires...more
The Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) recently passed a “temporary” emergency amendment that could affect business operations in Missouri. Missouri's liquor control laws and regulations are designed to...more
The state and federal governments tax a wide variety of growers of agricultural products to fund generic advertising – e.g., beef producers to fund “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner” or pork producers to fund “Pork: The Other...more
Ever since the FDA approved advertisements for prescription drugs on television, pharmaceutical companies have been heavily relying on them and collectively represent the third highest spender of any industry in national TV...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled earlier this week that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) did not violate the First Amendment when it refused to run an...more
A City of San Francisco Planning Code section that distinguishes between “general advertising signs” and “business signs” was upheld last week by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling...more
On June 14, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, issued its decision in Retail Digital Network LLC v. Ramona Prieto, Case No. 13-56069, D.C. No 2:11-cv-09065-CBM-PJW. The decision rejects a...more
An Illinois federal judge dismissed a proposed class action of lawyers whose business information was published by the online attorney database Avvo without their permission. The lead plaintiff, a Chicago-based personal...more
In a decision released on January 7, 2016, Retail Digital Network LLC v. Jacob Appelsmith, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned 29-year-old precedent set in Actmedia Inc. v. Stroh, which held that those...more
On January 7, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Retail Digital Network, LLC v. Appelsmith, overruling longstanding Ninth Circuit precedent concerning the legality of certain...more
On Tuesday, the FTC joined the Department of Justice and several other federal agencies in announcing numerous recent and ongoing actions against dietary supplement marketers. The FTC, in its discussions, highlighted a case...more
Three years ago, in United States v. Caronia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) neither prohibits nor criminalizes truthful, nonmisleading speech that...more
The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prevailed in the latest challenge to the FDA's prohibition against marketing FDA-approved drugs for off-label (or non-FDA-approved) uses. Applying the Second Circuit’s...more