The U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled that statute-of-limitations tolling available for "compulsory" counterclaims didn't apply to a copyright co-ownership counterclaim that failed to arise out of the same operative facts as the plaintiff's copyright co-ownership suit. The counterclaim thus was time-barred.
Record labels fear the ticking clock that will allow recording artists to terminate post-1977 sound-recording assignments beginning in 2013. That's because '203 of the U.S. Copyright Act provides for a grantor's recapture of assigned copyrights during a five-year period beginning 35 years after publication or 40 years from the assigning of a work. The termination right applies beyond sound-recording copyrights. Pre-1978 copyright assignments may be recaptured under 17 U.S.C. '304(c) during a five-year period that begins 56 years after the copyright in an assigned work was initially procured
Social networking sites offer an abundance of exculpatory and impeaching evidence that may not be obtainable without some undercover detective work. Unfortunately, discovery rules and ethical guidelines have not kept pace with the digital sprawl of MySpace and Facebook. In the absence of explicit direction from the Rules of Professional Conduct and the laws governing online behavior, flying a false flag in these uncharted waters may be hazardous.
Is a Tweet on the Twitter networking site protected by copyright law? The question is complex and without a definitive answer. The prevailing opinion is no, but with some possible exceptions.
In the arena of technology, it is hard to forget those traumatic events when the whole world seemed to change on a dime. Nowhere is this felt as extremely as in the legal industry where document production requirements are time critical. How do you help your staff transition to Word 2007 so that they may reach the same productivity levels as before? This article provides some tips to lessen the anxiety and drama potentially associated with this migration.
Deciding to become an early adopter for Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 7 operating system was one of those moments when all of the stars aligned.
Excel is a good tool for managing lists at the end-user desk. Short of working with a full-fledged database, Excel provides the ability to sort, filter, subtotal, parse, join (concatenate) and change the letter casing of your information for easier data handling and reporting.
During the life of any case, there will likely be valuable information obtained from the Internet that will be used at deposition or trial. Commonly, the proponent of online evidence will present a screen shot of the Web page, which was either downloaded as a .pdf or printed directly from the Web site. The process is like taking a photograph of the image as it appears on the monitor. In general, this captures not only the look, but also the download date and the URL. If proper steps are not taken to admit the evidence, the value of this information may be lost.
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's fiscal year 2009 annual report indicates declining revenue and patent filings. Notably, there was both a dip in the backlog of patent applications and an increase in the time it takes for the agency to issue a patent. Some lawyers believe the former can be attributed in part to applicants abandoning applications because of the economic downturn.
