Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

Navigating Your Lease Through a Sea of Liens Image

Navigating Your Lease Through a Sea of Liens

Francis X. Nolan, III & Marjorie F. Krumholz

Equipment lenders and lessors face specialized issues when the asset is a vessel. How is the lender secured in its collateral? Can a lessor be secured in a vessel titled in lessor's name? How does a lessor perfect its security interest in the vessel? Where does the lessor stand in relation to competing creditors? This article addresses these questions within the U.S. legal system and describes proposed legislation to expand opportunities for lease financing of vessels.

Features

Redefining Prior Art Under Proposed Patent Reform Measures Image

Redefining Prior Art Under Proposed Patent Reform Measures

Andrei Iancu & Maclain Wells

This is the second installment of a two-part series on the proposed move from a patent system granting priority of patent rights based upon invention dates to a system in which priority is based primarily upon filing dates. The first installment discussed the history behind the current first-to-invent system and the basics of the proposed changes to the system. This installment explores the statutory bars under the proposed legislation and other changes affecting prior art.

Reading Patents In Depth Image

Reading Patents In Depth

H. Jackson Knight

Getting information from patents remains a basic task for patent professionals and inventors, but rarely are any tips for reading patents available. Missing some patent detail is not only frustrating, but it can severely impact patenting strategy.

Features

If You Want a Broad Patent Construction, Be Careful What You Ask For Image

If You Want a Broad Patent Construction, Be Careful What You Ask For

Charles W. Shifley

In a recent case, a patent owner claimed to have invented side impact airbag sensing. The patent enabled an embodiment; that was stipulated. In opposition to a motion for summary judgment of invalidity for lack of enablement, the owner asserted that enablement of a preferred embodiment satisfied the enablement requirement of the patent law. It didn't. The case is only one of several consistent cases. You should beware, and consider the matter in both patent prosecution and litigation. If you own a patent, and wish for a broad construction, be careful what you wish for.

Features

Movers & Shakers Image

Movers & Shakers

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

Brian Short, a real estate finance attorney, has joined Texas law firm Winstead PC as a shareholder. He will be located in the firm's Dallas office, working with the Real Estate Structured Finance Practice Group in the Business & Transactions Department. Short returns to Winstead after a short tenure at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, where he was a partner in the firm's capital financial markets, commercial lending and real estate development and finance groups.…

The Leasing Hotline Image

The Leasing Hotline

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

Highlights of the latest commercial leasing cases from around the country.

Landlord Liability For Tenants Trading In Counterfeit Goods Image

Landlord Liability For Tenants Trading In Counterfeit Goods

Paul R. Diamond & Mark C. Vaughan

In addition to targeting counterfeiters, copyright and trademark holders have started going after commercial landlords whose tenants deal in fake merchandise. It is felt that this new strategy is needed in part because the counterfeiting retailers possess very few assets that can be seized and liquidated to compensate the copyright or trademark holder.

Features

In the Spotlight Image

In the Spotlight

Ira Fierstein

During lease negotiations with an anchor or other national tenant, it is customary for the tenant to slap on a laundry list of prohibited or 'noxious' uses and to require the landlord to subject the shopping center to the restrictions contained therein. However, before the landlord concedes several other historically noxious uses, the owner of a modern-day lifestyle center or mixed-use center, particularly one still under development, should look carefully at these standard restrictions and consider softening the restrictions to allow certain types of uses which are finding their way into upscale and first-class shopping centers.

Features

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Image

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Thomas L. Caradonna & Jennifer E. Behm

The purpose of a 'cure period' provision is to allow the tenant an opportunity to cure a default under the lease before further action can be taken unilaterally by the landlord. However, what happens if the landlord attempts to terminate the lease before the tenant has cured the default and before the end of the cure period? Is this early notification invalid or does it become effective immediately upon the expiration of the cure period without cure?

Engagement Letters: Preventive Medicine Image

Engagement Letters: Preventive Medicine

Michael Mooney

Establishing a successful relationship between a law firm and its clients requires clear communication, and what better time to start than when the relationship begins? In addition to helping avoid misunderstandings on billings, a well-drafted engagement letter provides an early opportunity to confirm both the client's and the firm's expectations on a number of other matters as well.

Need Help?

  1. Prefer an IP authenticated environment? Request a transition or call 800-756-8993.
  2. Need other assistance? email Customer Service or call 1-877-256-2472.

MOST POPULAR STORIES

  • Disconnect Between In-House and Outside Counsel
    'Disconnect Between In-House and Outside Counsel is a continuation of the discussion of client expectations and the disconnect that often occurs. And although the outside attorneys should be pursuing how inside-counsel actually think, inside counsel should make an effort to impart this information without waiting to be asked.
    Read More ›
  • Divorce Lawyers' Obligation to Children
    Do divorce lawyers have an obligation to disclose client confidences when it is in the best interests of the client's child to do so? The short answer of the rules of professional responsibility is 'no' because a 'yes' answer is deemed to be fundamentally inconsistent with the premises of the adversary system in which the divorce lawyer functions. The longer answer is that the rules encourage ' but do not require ' a divorce lawyer to counsel the client to authorize the disclosure because it is in the best interests of both parent and child.
    Read More ›
  • Upping the Legal Training Ante
    Womble Carlyle's technology training and online learning programs were in need of an upgrade. Unprecedented firm growth, heightened emphasis on developing lawyers' core technology competencies, and a need to streamline and automate existing e-learning processes led the firm to initiate a fundamental shift.
    Read More ›