Lawyers who find ways to provide clients with incentives to hire the firm ought to be rewarded accordingly. The principle seems sound enough but, as usual, the devil is in the proverbial details.
To avoid declaratory judgment actions, patent holders may opt to sue or threaten the purchasers of an allegedly infringing product, without threatening suit against the manufacturer. In effect, the patent holder coerces the manufacturing company to give up the right to manufacture or distribute the accused product by scaring off its customers.
Since joining DLA Piper five months ago, Terri Mottershead has worked to significantly expand the firm's professional development program to serve as a resource not only to the firm's attorneys, but also to its clients.
<i>Part One of a Two-Part Article</i><p>In high-technology disputes, a patentee must secure a thorough understanding of often complex and subtle technologies in accused devices to prove patent infringement. Despite a patentee's best efforts to obtain proof of infringement, very often the most convincing evidence of patent infringement ' for example, proprietary design documents of the accused device ' lies within the possession of the alleged infringer itself.
With the average tenure of a law firm Chief Marketing Officer hovering around three years, business development and marketing executives might wonder if the profession offers a healthy career platform for them long term. Here's what they need to know.
Many single and divorced people are savoring their unmarried lifestyles, and are leveraging the freedom of being unattached to creatively develop their business networks. Here's how they do it.
“Baseball arbitration” refers to the process used in Major League Baseball in which if an eligible player's representative and the club ownership cannot reach a compensation agreement through negotiation, each party enters a final submission and during a formal hearing each side — player and management — presents its case and then the designated panel of arbitrators chooses one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. This method has become increasingly popular even beyond the sport of baseball.
Insiders (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.
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
With 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.
