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Court Watch
Circuit Court Reinstates Dealer's Defamation Claims Against Manufacturer <br>Court Denies Franchisee's Motion to Vacate Attorneys' Fees Award
Features
Representing Athletes in Trouble
Speaking recently on a sports law panel at the annual Georgia Bar Media and Judiciary Conference, Atlanta lawyer David Cronwall, who represents sports stars in trouble, gave a first-hand account of an attorney's balancing act between helping a client avoid prison and salvaging the athlete's career.
Features
Third Circuit Weighs Novel Cybersecurity Case
Five years ago, Russian hackers broke into the Wyndham Hotels computer network and stole the credit card information for thousands of customers, a security breach that has now put the novel question of whether the FTC can sue a company for failing to properly secure its data in front of the Third Circuit.
Features
The 2015 Employer Mandate Is Here
The year 2015 is here ' in fact, the first quarter of 2015 has already flown by ' and so is the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) employer "play or pay" mandate, which has been delayed, in total or in part, twice.
Features
Browse, Click, Sign, Enforce
Signing, dating and keeping a record of a paper contract are standard practice ' afterthoughts most of the time. However, that standard practice does not easily translate to online legal agreements ' the agreements that are native to websites, mobile apps and other digital platforms, such as "Terms of Use," "Terms of Service," "Privacy Policies" and disclaimers.
Features
Federal Circuit Refuses to Review the PTAB's Decision to Institute IPR
In its first-ever ruling in an appeal from a final decision in an <i>inter partes</i> review (IPR) under the America Invents Act, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's rulemaking for conducting IPR proceedings. The Federal Circuit's decision leaves in place IPR rules that increase the likelihood of invalidating patents and solidifies IPR as an attractive alternative to district court litigation.
Features
Leasing Opportunities in Mexico
Mexico's equipment financing market is already well-developed by regional standards, and is the second largest in Latin America. The predominant assets financed in Mexico include motor vehicles, information technology (IT) and industrial equipment.
Features
Castle Defense
In Part One, last month, the authors examined the Federal Circuit's <i>VirnetX</i> decision affirming lower courts' role as gatekeepers for expert testimony. The discussion continues herein.
Features
Approaching Payment Processors To Fight Counterfeiters Online
There are lots of knock-offs of entertainment industry goods that flood the marketplace. You can find them on the street, but more and more shoppers buy them online. And the online purveyors of counterfeit goods can be particularly difficult to thwart. Cease-and-desist letters are fine,DMCA take-down letters are helpful, but if you really want to cause counterfeiters pain and stop them from infringing on intellectual property rights, you need to cut off their lifeline: cash flow.
Features
Loss for QVC on Internet Crawling Case
In an opinion that has defined a section of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a law that has been clouded by decades of amendments, a federal judge in Philadelphia has ruled in favor of an Internet startup company and against retail giant QVC.
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- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (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.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›