When the failure of a smart product leads to a fire, the challenge of how smart home applications should be evaluated and examined as a potential cause becomes a more complex undertaking than the failure of a similar but dumb product.
Continue Reading The Impact of the Smart Home Revolution on Product Liability and Fire Cause Determinations
Not surprisingly, following on the heels of various accounts and reports of fires caused by hoverboards, ten manufacturers, distributors and retailers have issued an official recall of 501,000 hoverboards in the United States coordinated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Continue Reading U.S. CPSC Oversees Recall of Hoverboards Citing Risks Associated with Lithium-ion Battery Packs
As a big law firm involved in the defense of Product Liability cases, of course we are interested in how Product Liability law will evolve to address the App Economy.
Mobile apps (apps) are software applications designed to work on smart phones or tablets. The consumer’s first introduction to apps were the “native apps” that increased the user’s productivity or provided general information retrieval from the internet. Those native apps were features such as a web browser, email, calendar or stock ticker that typically come pre-bundled in the device. Shortly after the introduction of the smart phone, software designers started building apps that could be downloaded to mobile devices that provided the user with more capability than the pre-bundled native apps offered by the manufacturer of the device.
Continue Reading Pokémon GO: An Indicator of Product Liability in the App Economy
For many consumers, it is hard to remember performing a daily routine without using a mobile application. App usage starts almost immediately − with a morning alarm that wakes you up slowly or with a coffee waiting for you at your favorite coffee shop. Consumers are making purchases, reading the news, transferring money, diagnosing a migraine and playing interactive videogames, all without lifting their heads from their smartphones.
Continue Reading Mobile Apps − Has the Marketplace Downloaded Potential Product Liability Risk?
On May 10, 2016, Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL), the global safety science organization, announced that it issued the first safety certification to the UL 2272 safety requirements for electrical systems of self-balancing scooters (aka hoverboards), which was launched in February 2016. After completing a construction evaluation, safety testing and complying with UL 2272’s marking, labeling and user instruction requirements, a hoverboard manufactured by Ninebot (parent company of Segway) has been found to meet all the requirements. UL reminds consumers that the UL 2272 certification does not address riding safety and that proper safety precautions should be taken when using self-balancing scooters.
Continue Reading UL Issues First Safety Certification for Hoverboards