Last week’s Supreme Court decision in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. signified a subtle yet important shift in commercial speech interpretation that may precede increased corporate strength in the legal arena. The opinion, by Justice Kennedy, argues that Vermont did not have grounds to ban pharmaceutical data-mining as it is a form of non-deceptive commercial information-sharing that is [...]
Last week, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ban on the advertising of alcohol in college newspapers. The case involved a challenge to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission’s expansive ban on the advertising of beer, wine and mixed drinks in student-run publications throughout the state of Virginia. Beyond the obvious economic implications (the newspapers [...]
One March 19, 2010 the FDA issued a broad set of regulations directly restricting tobacco companies’ ability to advertise and promote their products. The regulations were issued following President Obama’s signing of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act last June, which granted the FDA extensive authority to create such regulations. The landmark legislation negates the Supreme Court’s 2000 [...]