Regulation

On July 1, a narrowed version of SB 690 passed another legislative hurdle in lawmakers’ efforts to curb rampant wiretapping litigation in California. The new amendments curtail enforcement of CIPA’s trap and trace/ pen register provisions to the attorney general and the law would be retroactively applied for two years.

A recent First Department case explores the breadth of the Uniform Heirs Property Act (RPAPL 993) which significantly modifies the partition process for property determined to be “heirs property.”

New USPTO procedures allow patent owners to respond to ex parte requests pre-reexamination. Patent owners should consider strategically leveraging these procedures to prevent their patent claims from being cancelled or narrowed through reexamination.

The children’s privacy risk model is changing in the United States. Historically, many businesses could credibly say they did not know whether children or teens were using their apps and services. Now, that defense is becoming harder to sustain, bringing with it a wave of potential compliance obligations.

Delaware recently became the sixth state to enact the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Act, with minor modifications (the Delaware Act). This two-part article describes the innovations, certainty and paradigm provided by the Uniform Act and Delaware’s revisions to the Uniform Act. Part One includes background regarding assignments for the benefit of creditors, including historical shortcomings that the Uniform Act is intended to address.

In the case of In re Black Diamond Energy of Delaware, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania provided insight regarding the “police and regulatory power” exception to the automatic stay set forth in 11 U.S.C. Section 362(b)(4).

The reach of insider trading law is not fixed by anything Congress wrote. It expands as prosecutors and courts apply fraud statutes to new instruments, new markets, and new sources of duty. So where does that leave the soldier or a senator who bets on a forthcoming raid they are privy to knowledge of?

This article discusses three open issues following Dubin v. United States: How appellate courts have been interpreting the “at the crux” language; an emerging circuit split as to whether district courts must specifically instruct juries on the “at the crux” test; and questions not answered in Dubin that will be subject to further development.