Features

Last month's article addressed patent attorneys' subservience to deadlines and WIPO help. This month's installment concludes with unplanned events and the virtual world.

Applicants for U.S. patents are not always aware that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ('USPTO') generally takes two to four years — and often even longer — before granting a patent. Although the USPTO has long had a rarely used program enabling an applicant to request examination of a case out of turn, that program changed markedly in August 2006, when the USPTO implemented a procedure called 'Accelerated Examination.'

A rare U.S. Supreme Court decision in January 2007 may change the way parties negotiate patent license agreements in the future. The <i>Medimmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc.</i> decision has reversed the mainstream position that a patent licensee must discontinue paying royalties to challenge its obligation to pay royalties in a court of law. At face value, the decision might appear to be of little impact to parties of a patent license agreement. However, it could have a dramatic effect on how they approach the negotiation of a license agreement. In addition, the <i>Medimmune</i> decision has already been applied to patent infringement cases outside of the scope of licensing arrangements.

In June 2005, the Florida State Legislature amended its modification and enforcement statute, ' 61.14, Fla. Stat., to provide that a 'court may reduce or terminate an award of alimony upon specific written findings ' that ' a supportive relationship has existed between the obligee and a person with whom the obligee resides.' While the statute obviously only applies to the State of Florida, it raises issues for drafters of marital settlement agreements in other states. The purpose of this article is to explore some of the questions that a family-law practitioner should be asking and considering in the drafting of a marital settlement agreement given the Florida experience in the area of post-judgment cohabitation of a recipient spouse.

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Features

News about lawyers and law firms in the product liability field.

Features

As the May edition of <i>LJN's Product Liability Law &amp; Strategy</i> went to press, the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sought to 'unravel some of the mysteries of CAFA's cryptic text' with respect to the 'mass actions' provisions &mdash; which the court characterized as an 'opaque, baroque maze of interlocking cross-references that defy easy interpretation.' <i>Lowery v. Alabama Power Co.</i>, __ F. 3d __, 2007 WL 1062769, at *1, *8 (11th Cir. Apr. 11, 2007), affirming <i>Lowery v. Honeywell Int'l Inc.</i>, 460 F. Supp. 2d 1288 (N.D. Ala. 2006). In affirming the grant of remand, the Court of Appeals (in dicta) addressed some of the issues presented in our article 'CAFA: Finding a Method to the Madness of 'Mass Actions'':

Over the last decade, legal organizations have begun to reap the benefits of using computerized practice management systems. The only remaining drawback is document creation manually via hand typing. This process is painful (literally) and costly for highly paid legal professionals. On average, a single attorney or judge spends upwards of $20,000 per year to digitize case information. In times like these, reducing costs, unnecessary errors and providing better service to clients can be the key to your organization's success and profitability.