Upcoming Changes to European Patent Examination Procedures
The new European Patent Office rules, which will be effective on April 1, 2010, will drastically restrict how a patent applicant is able to file divisional patent applications and will increase the patent applicant's obligations to provide information to the EPO during patent examination.
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What Went Wrong?
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision reversing the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' denial of a vaccine injury claim highlights the widening gulf between the Federal Circuit and Federal Claims court on vaccine cases.
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Federal Circuit Reverses Denial of Vaccine Injury Claim
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision reversing the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' denial of a vaccine injury claim highlights the widening gulf between the Federal Circuit and Federal Claims court on vaccine cases.
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Medical Providers and Social Networking Sites
In many ways, today's social networking systems are wonderful tools, bringing people together ' and no longer just the domain of teenagers. But these networking systems raise a set of issues that require us to think about confidentiality and professionalism in a new way.
DEBT Is a Four-Letter Word
Matrimonial attorneys must be able to distinguish elements of leverage risk that are accentuated in today's economy in order to present overvaluing business equity. Here's how.
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Divorce Windfall Not Unconscionable
'Courts will not set aside an agreement on the ground of unconscionability simply because it might have been improvident,'" a panel recently held in <i>Etzion v. Etzion</i>, 2008-00759.
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MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›