Litigation

LJN's <i>Entertainment Law &amp; Finance</i> Editor-in-Chief Stan Soocher is scheduled to appear on Court TV on Tuesday, May 22, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT on the "Best Defense" segment to talk about Phil Spector's music litigations.

In a major patent law development, the Supreme Court on April 30 adopted a new, flexible standard that will make it easier for patents to be denied or challenged on the grounds that the invention at issue is too obvious to deserve patent protection.

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More and more often insureds are being forced to litigate with their insurers to protect rights under insurance policies, while at the same time those insureds must actively defend against the very litigation for which they seek insurance coverage. Indeed, insurers often will pursue litigation against their insureds to establish the absence of any coverage obligation if there appears to be a question regarding the existence of a defense or indemnity obligation with respect to underlying litigation. Alternatively, due to potentially applicable statutes of limitation, or a need to seek judicial intervention to force an insurer to assist in an underlying defense for which the insurer has refused coverage, an insured may be required to file coverage litigation before underlying litigation is concluded.

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Section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act requires financial institutions to implement a written Customer Identification Program (CIP) that is appropriate for the size and type of business and that includes minimum requirements. The CIP is intended to enable the institution to form a reasonable belief that it knows the true identify of each customer. The CIP must include account opening procedures that specify the identifying information to be obtained from each customer. It must also include reasonable and practical risk based procedures for verifying each customer's identity.

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The Supreme Court recently changed the longstanding rules for obtaining a permanent injunction in patent infringement cases. <i>eBay Inc. v. MercExchange LLC</i>, 126 S.Ct. 1837 (2006). Prior to the Supreme Court's ruling in eBay, it was generally accepted that a successful plaintiff in a patent infringement trial was entitled to a permanent injunction virtually automatically. The Federal Circuit's rule was 'courts will issue permanent injunctions against patent infringement absent exceptional circumstances.' The few exceptions to this rule were generally limited to situations where public health would be affected by enjoining the infringer.

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In-depth analysis of the latest rulings.

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What happens when the U.S. Supreme Court hands you a loss? As anyone can tell you, this usually signals the end of the road, and defeat must be admitted. Not cowed by such a setback, however, is a Colorado woman on a mission to prevent from happening to anyone else what happened to her when law enforcement authorities refused to protect her children from their murderous father. Although she lost her bid to hold the city of Castle Rock, CO, liable for negligence under U.S. law, she has now gone to an international tribunal.

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Other than holding that courts cannot use race as a criterion for decision (<i>Palmore v. Sidoti</i>, the U.S. Supreme Court has not delved deeply into defining the constitutional rights of divorcing parents in the context of a custody dispute. In <i>Shepp v. Shepp</i>, however, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently held that a divorced parent had a constitutional right to advocate his sincere religious belief in polygamy to his 9-year-old child.