Features
Leigh Jackson
For Peter Wiley, the Walt Disney Co.'s European head of legal, these are interesting times. His employer, one of the most iconic companies in the world, is engaged in a drive to expand internationally and take the House of Mouse into the digital age.
Features
Stan Soocher
Los Angeles entertainment attorney Robert A. Finkelstein accompanied Nancy Sinatra to Washington, DC, last summer for a U.S. Congressional hearing on a proposal for terrestrial radio stations to pay performance royalties to air sound recordings. Sinatra was a key artist-rights witness before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Finkelstein praised a recent change in Washington state's right-of-publicity statute. The amendment, which took effect in June 2008, eliminated a personality's domicile as a bar to bringing a right-of-publicity suit.
Features
Thomas R. White
In an aging population, accumulations in employee retirement plans assume greater and greater importance. Nowhere is this more true than in divorce, when, for many couples, retirement savings represent the most significant part of their savings.
Features
Sherry Karabin
The start of same-sex marriages in California on June 16 made headlines across the country. However, it was not such a big deal for many U.S. companies. These businesses already give their gay and lesbian employees many of the same benefits that they provide to their married straight workers.
Features
John M. Cone
The <i>Muniauction v. Thomson</i> decision illustrates the Federal Circuit's application of the Supreme Court's decision on obviousness in <i>KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc.</i> and confirms the Federal Circuit's own decision on "joint or divided" infringement in <i>BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech</i>.
Features
Daretia Austin
More than a decade after the license agreement between The Topps Company and Stani expired, the question of who owns the rights to manufacture and distribute the original Bazooka' bubble gum formula in South America is still unresolved.
Features
Lawrence L. Bell, Theodore J. Zouzounis
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Stephen M. (Pete) Peterson
Closely held businesses produce over 50% of the Gross National Product ("GNP"). Less than 50% of these businesses have a continuation plan and almost one-third of these companies (29%) use a buy-sell arrangement to assist in their planning. Buy-Sell agreements are very simple tools that over the years have grown to meet increasing needs of closely held businesses.
Features
James T. McKeown
In track, a runner "jumps the gun" when he or she begins running before the gun has sounded. A similar concept occurs when two competing firms that have agreed to merge begin coordinating their activities or combining their distribution networks before the merger closes. Here is what merging firms can and cannot do before the gun sounds.
Features
Stewart E. Sterk
What obligations does a buyer's broker have to different clients interested in purchasing the same property? When faced with that question in <i>Rivkin v. Century 21 Teran Realty LLC</i>, the Second Circuit certified the question to the New York Court of Appeals. <i>Rivkin</i> answered at least one significant question surrounding the obligations of a buyer's broker, but the Court of Appeals opinion raised new questions whose resolution will await future litigation (or legislation).
Features
ALM Staff
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Law Journal Newsletters
A look at recent rulings of importance.
