Franchisors and franchisees need faster, cheaper, and better ways to resolve disputes. Planned early negotiation processes and early active intervention clauses can help parties and lawyers achieve these goals.
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.
Part One of this series discussed common IP settlement terms that may give rise to antitrust liability and how the analysis of whether a settlement agreement violates the antitrust laws depends upon many factors that are specific to the underlying facts. This second installment addresses recent challenges by the government and private plaintiffs to settlements between brand name and generic drug manufacturers, and how these challenges have further refined the antitrust framework for analyzing patent litigation settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry.
Last year, the Southern District of New York reignited the 90-year-old hot news doctrine and applied it in the Internet context. Since that decision, a number of entities have attempted to use the hot news doctrine to prevent the unauthorized use of time-sensitive content, including most recently, financial firms and media outlets attempting to prevent news-oriented Web sites from publishing their well-researched content.
As international businesses seek to expand across borders, including by availing themselves of legal tools (such as the Madrid Protocol) to register in the United States trademarks developed abroad, there is surprisingly little guidance as to what enforceable rights under U.S. law actually result from this process. However, as shown by the recent decision, In re Casino de Monaco Trademark Litigation, even well-established foreign companies can encounter difficulties enforcing rights not grounded in traditional U.S. trademark law principles of use in commerce.
If you ask most attorneys whether they have planned for their retirement, most would answer "of course." However, for the vast majority that answer would be very misleading.
So what's the deliverable once you finally convince Firm Management and the designated Lead Partners to buy into a Client Feedback program focused ' at least initially ' on its Tier 1 or key clients?
For media-relations professionals advising lawyers and law firms, the question is simple: How does the emergence of the Internet as the primary vehicle for delivering news affect law-firm media relations?
For a number of reasons, selective travel leading to invaluable "face time" with key firm stakeholders is, ultimately, more economical than succumbing to the impulse to stay close to home.
This article reviews some of the time-tested ways to solidify client relationships and gain new clients during a down economy.
