A federal judge has thrown out a trade dress suit that the manufacturer of Dixie Cups filed against Huhtamaki Americas, the maker of Chinet, over the design of an insulated paper cup. U.S. District Judge Timothy C.

The 4th Circuit has given new life to a public records suit that seeks to shed light on the Justice Department’s once-secret support for Research in Motion Ltd. in a high-profile patent case that settled in 2006. Hunton & Williams filed the suit in Virginia to dig up documents in the underlying patent dispute, in which the DOJ in 2005 secretly aligned itself with RIM, the maker of BlackBerrys

A lawyer was arrested Monday for entering a Georgia courthouse with a loaded .40-caliber handgun in his briefcase, according to a court administrator. Rodd C. Walton of the Walton Law Group in Atlanta was taken into custody on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a weapon into a public gathering.

A man claiming the antidepressant Zoloft caused him to beat up his ex-girlfriend may tap an expert witness to back up his defense, a New York state judge has ruled. But the judge also held that an expert witness for Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, may take the stand in rebuttal.

A suit alleging that the maker of the dietary supplement Relacore fraudulently marketed it for use in cutting belly fat and stress is not right for class action treatment, a New Jersey appeals court ruled on Friday. The judges said there are too many possible variables to satisfy the requirement that questions of law or fact common to the class predominate over questions affecting only individual members.