LJN Newsletters

Malpractice Suit Continues over Manilow Musical
Malpractice Suit/Lack of Specificity

A roundup of noteworthy entertainment law firm and attorney movement and news.

Valuation of a sponsorship opportunity is much more art than science and it is important that a lawyer involved in the negotiation of a sponsorship agreement understand how the various factors interrelate. While this article focuses on the factors affecting the valuation of a sponsorship opportunity with a NASCAR race team, most of the factors can be applied to sponsorship opportunities in other sports as well.

Who's doing what; who's going where.

Recent decisions have assaulted continuations on several fronts. Because of a new requirement to rescind claim scope disclaimers, it will be easier to avoid infringement of continuations, and because of strengthening enablement and written description requirements, more continuations will be invalidated on those grounds and on prior art grounds when priority claims are more easily broken. Consequently, care should be taken in the preparation and prosecution of any patent application claiming priority to another application.

In re TS Tech and, to a lesser extent for patent cases, In re Volkswagen of Am., Inc., have changed the landscape of ' 1404(a) cases in the Fifth Circuit. Patent cases that once would not have been transferred out of the Fifth Circuit may now be transferred based on TS Tech.

Highlights of the latest intellectual property cases from around the country.

Recent decisions have begun to fill in the gaps left by In re Seagate Technology, LLC. They suggest that a competent opinion is still an effective defense to a willfulness charge, and that a jury may consider a defendant's failure to obtain an opinion when determining the defendant's intent for purposes of willfulness and inducement. Also, legitimate trial defenses may be sufficient to establish that a defendant's actions at the time of infringement were not "objectively reckless.