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Features

State of California v. Continental Insurance Company Image

State of California v. Continental Insurance Company

Kim V. Marrkand & Wynter N. Lavier

In a blow for insurers and contrary to the weight of authority in multiple other juridictions, the California Court of Appeals for the Fourth District recently reversed the trial court on its so-called "no stacking rule" and affirmed the trial court in its "all sums" liability allocation.

Features

Who Needs Patents? Image

Who Needs Patents?

Alexander Poltorak

The Patent Reform Act of 2007 may soon be recycled as The Patent Reform Act of 2009 and reintroduced in the new Congress. Should this reform become the law, it is likely that inventors will still invent. The author's fear, however, is that without strong patent law, investors will no longer want to invest in unprotected ideas.

Features

What's Old Is New in Web Site Protection Image

What's Old Is New in Web Site Protection

Fred H. Perkins & Alvin C. Lin

In the early "wild west" days of the Internet, legal remedies always seemed a step behind the intellectual property dilemmas presented by the new technological medium. Congress has gradually responded by enacting new laws to tackle high-tech loopholes, and the courts have creatively applied traditional concepts in an effort to prevent unscrupulous people from exploiting others' Internet-based intellectual property.

Features

Gripe Sites: Sue or Stew Image

Gripe Sites: Sue or Stew

William G. Pecau

Grip sites tell a business what some customers think, even though their opinions are not necessarily those that the business wants to hear ' and certainly not those that it would want other customers or potential customers to hear. They could serve as a warning system to companies that their products or services are not being well received and that they are suffering from bad word of mouth. Gripe sites also, theoretically, add to the public good as forums for discussion and create better-informed customers. But there are, or should be, many other and better ways to obtain this information, such as through a company's own Web site and toll-free customer service numbers.

Features

Bit Parts Image

Bit Parts

Stan Soocher

False Endorsement/No Preemption<br>Song Copyright/Implied License<br>Video-Game Statutes/Unconstitutionality

Features

Assessing Challenge To Damages in File-Sharing Litigation Image

Assessing Challenge To Damages in File-Sharing Litigation

Eric R. Chad & William D. Schultz

The recording industry estimates that music piracy has cost it billions of dollars during the past 15 years. Facing the potential for an industry-wide collapse, the RIAA undertook its aggressive litigation campaign to protect itself and its constituents from copyright infringement by suing individual file sharers. After fighting a public relations battle over some of its tactics, the RIAA has chosen to temper its aggressiveness. The RIAA is instead forming relationships with ISPs that maintain the online accounts of the consumers.

Features

Cameo Clips Image

Cameo Clips

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT/RULE 12(b)(6) DISMISSAL<br>THEATRICAL OPTIONS/FUTURE ENFORCEABILITY

Features

<b>Counsel Concerns:</b> Severability Used In Malpractice Suit Over California Talent Agency Act Image

<b>Counsel Concerns:</b> Severability Used In Malpractice Suit Over California Talent Agency Act

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

In January 2008, the California Supreme Court decided that the doctrine of severability of contracts could be applied to the state's Talent Agencies Act (TAA). Under the supreme court's ruling, a personal manager's activities as an unlicensed talent agent may be severed from the manager's legal activities, the latter still being commissionable from the artist by the manager.

Features

Business Manager Denied New Trial In Malmsteen Case Image

Business Manager Denied New Trial In Malmsteen Case

Stan Soocher

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to grant a judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial for the former business manager of musician Yngwie Malmsteen in a suit by the musician over missing income.

Features

Is a Retroactive Publicity Right Constitutional? Image

Is a Retroactive Publicity Right Constitutional?

Alan J. Hartnick

Was Marilyn Monroe domiciled in New York and not California when she died in 1962? If it was California, the company succeeding to her rights might have publicity rights after her death, if that state's statute extending publicity rights back from when the statute originally took effect was constitutional. The new California statute is retroactive as well as prospective. Monroe, of course, never heard of publicity rights, which were enacted in California in 1984. If it was New York, there are no publicity rights, only privacy rights, which ended with her death.

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MOST POPULAR STORIES

  • Private Equity Valuation: A Significant Decision
    Insiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.
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