Commercial Law

Features

President Barack Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 into law on May 11, giving companies the ability for the first time to use federal law to sue those who misappropriate their confidential information.

Features

Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with 50 or more full-time, or full-time equivalent, employees are required to offer qualified health care coverage. These employers are referred to as applicable large employers (ALEs). If these ALEs fail to comply with this "employer mandate," then the employer may be faced with significant penalties. As such, employee counts and categorizations in employer organizations are critical under the ACA, and whether the employer mandate is satisfied.

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The amendments to the FRCP that took effect on Dec. 1, 2015, are already having an impact on IP litigation, especially patent troll lawsuits.

Features

There have been four waves of change over the last 50 years. We are now entering the fifth wave and this one will be a tsunami. The lawyers who do not recognize the trends will not be able to enter a new era and survive. The fifth wave will turn partnership leverage, compensation systems and the business model upside down. There is not much time to make the incremental changes that will support sustained profitability in law firms.

Features

The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (ELFA) has released its Q2 update to the 2016 Equipment Leasing & Finance U.S. Economic Outlook, which lowered its yearly equipment and software investment forecast to 2.7%, down from 4.4% growth forecast in its 2016 Annual Outlook released in December 2015.

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Chief Justice John Roberts recently said that the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should "achieve the goal of Rule 1 ' 'the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding' ' only if the entire legal community, including the bench, bar, and legal academy, step up to the challenge of making real change."

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At the end of 2015, Congress passed, as part of a large tax extender bill, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act (PATH), an extension of '181 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 181 has been available since 2004 to permit expedited deduction of the costs of a film or TV production. Since inception, this has had several sunset provisions, each of which was extended as part of year-end extender bills. The latest for the first time has extended the availability of '181 treatment to live stage productions.

Features

Trademark licensors, including those in the entertainment industry, are scrambling to keep up with the evolving use of social media as a tool for business advertising. As technology changes, so must the provisions in a trademark license.