Cover Story

Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.

Recent appellate decisions reflect a distaste for appeals from bankruptcy court sanction orders. A split Fourth Circuit even refused to hear such an appeal. Other courts tend to limit sanctions or, alternatively, accept a bankruptcy judge's findings under a stringent "abuse of discretion" standard.

DOJ's Cyber Fraud Initiative has been a wake-up call for companies to prioritize cybersecurity and adhere to stringent standards. By leveraging the FCA, DOJ has used a powerful enforcement tool to target a wide range of cybersecurity failures and misrepresentations. The increasing focus on cybersecurity by enforcement agencies means that robust cybersecurity practices are becoming a standard expectation, not just a best practice.

What responses are available to a landlord after a false claim of discrimination? The Court of Appeals faced that issue and held that a landlord may not seek to recover the damages it has suffered as a result of a false discrimination claim, so long as the claim was made in good faith.

Notwithstanding the significant threats facing companies as a result of deepfake technology, there are several things companies can do to protect themselves and their employees from becoming the victim of a deepfake scam.

Here's the playbook for disruption: Take attorneys out of the equation. Stop building CRM that succeeds or fails on their shoulders. We need to shift the focus and, instead, build the technology from the ground up for the professionals who actually use it: marketing and business development.

The protection of trade secrets has long been understood to be a legitimate business interest, and, traditionally, companies have used non-competition clauses to protect their trade secrets. Now, with non-competition agreements in doubt and facing greater scrutiny, companies will need to rely on other protection mechanisms.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, holding that legislatively-imposed fees on development are subject to the same constitutional scrutiny as fees imposed by administrative bodies. The Court's decision may have an impact on fees New York municipalities impose on developers in lieu of developer-provided parkland.