Commercial Law

In September of last year, the America Invents Act introduced a number of powerful tools for challenging the validity of an issued patent at the USPTO ' Inter Partes Review (IPR), Covered Business Method Review (CBMR), and Post-Grant Review (PGR). By a large margin, however, the most popular of these procedures has been the IPR.

Research over the past four years is showing a slow-moving upward trend of law firms hiring professional salespeople. This trend spans all sizes of firms, from small to global. The backgrounds of these professionals varies; primarily, they come to firms from a solid background of success in the sales world, many having worked against assigned quotas and on partial commission.

The difficulties of securing important company and customer data are not new to franchised businesses, but the scale of the problem continues to increase. A new white paper by insurance consultants Peter R. Taffae and M. Damien Magnuson indicate another threat: inadequate insurance coverage when security breaches occur.

In its Q4 update to the 2013 Equipment Leasing & Finance U.S. Economic Outlook, the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation expects investment in equipment and software to grow 3.3% in 2013. The report, which is focused on the $725 billion equipment leasing and finance industry, forecasts equipment investment and capital spending in the United States and evaluates the effects of various related and external factors in play currently and into the foreseeable future.

A federal district court's recent summary judgment decision in In re: Brican America, LLC Equipment Lease Litigation appears to be a mixed bag for vendor finance companies.

A high percentage of business aircraft operators do not comply with key provisions of Parts 91, 119 and 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), conducting their flight operations by and through illegal "flight department companies" ...

Many employers use publicly available Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and other social media outlets as screening tools for job applicants. And they may also use them as a way to monitor employees. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. A handful of employers, however, have pushed their due diligence even further than standard Internet searches.

With the predominance of Internet marketing now continuously eroding what might be considered the traditional geographic "territories" of different licensees, the potential for conflict only becomes more acute.