Ambiguity in Law Firm Partnership Agreements
You would expect that lawyers, many of whom draft and revise contracts on a daily basis, would be especially careful to draft their own law firm partnership agreements so as to make their intentions clear and remove areas of potential ambiguity. Yet this does not always happen. In several recent cases, partners have brought suit against their firms or former firms, and argue that provisions of their partnership agreements should be interpreted one way, while the firms have chosen to implement the provisions in other ways.
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You Tube Suit Threatens Online Communication<br>Yahoo Files Suit Against Lottery Spammers
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Downloading Cases Hearten the Defense
Defense lawyers in copyright infringement cases brought by members of the RIAA are trumpeting as victories three recent court decisions that rein in the association's campaign against individuals who make songs available for distribution on the Web.
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Secret Online Identity
Companies and their employees at times face the difficult issue of protecting themselves from cybersmears by anonymous Internet users. One of the most problematic issues is the tension between identifying what is protected speech under the First Amendment, and the standard that must be met in order to obtain the identity of an anonymous poster who has used the Internet to spread damaging statements.
Federal Circuit Split Decision on 'Public Accessibility' of Internet Posting
Do Internet postings constitute 'printed publications' that are available as prior art under 35 U.S.C. '102(b)? Most practitioners and examiners behave as though this were a settled question. It is not. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently addressed this issue in <i>SRI International v. Internet Security Systems and Symantec</i>. After much discussion of the principle of 'public accessibility,' the majority of the panel determined that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether a paper that SRI posted on its Internet server was a printed publication.
<b>Web Watch</b> Super-Powered Web Sites Hit the Jackpot
Consider this the super-powers edition of Web Watch. Read on to find out how you can build memory stronger than an elephant's, have the vision to search across the Web and develop the ability to communicate from the afterlife.
Fifth Circuit Affirms Lanham Act and Antitrust Judgment for Franchisor
In <i>Schlotzsky's Ltd. v. Sterling Purchasing and National Dist-ribution Co., Inc. ("Sterling")</i>, 502 F.3d 393 (5th Cir. 2008), the Fifth Circuit reinforced the tough standard for proving an antitrust tying claim against a franchisor and clarified the broad scope of the Lanham Act's unfair competition provision. The decision is important for franchisors defending claims of market power.
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