LJN Newsletters

  • Document Assembly Automation

    When an attorney is creating work product, a document assembly product is in order. It's the perfect tool to bring together needed information that is otherwise often stored in incongruent systems such as document management systems, other documents and Internet resource sites. Attorneys and legal staff need to leverage a firm's library of past work, while eliminating the frustrating tasks of endless cutting and pasting and hunting for source documents.
    However, without a document assembly application, the law firm's clients are paying billable attorney hours to search for the information they need.

    January 26, 2007Judye Carter Reynolds

  • The Bleeding Edge of Change: Getting Control of Client Files

    Lawyers are not necessarily known for being cutting-edge adopters of technology, particularly those in small- to medium-sized firms. In fact, it's more of a bleeding edge, as lawyers in all size firms are being painfully thrust into using sophisticated technology solutions to manage cases along with all the attendant print and electronic records. A comprehensive and reliable enterprise-wide electronic records management system is critical for tracking, storing and retrieving client files to reduce ethical, malpractice and compliance risks for law firms.

    January 26, 2007David C. Reymann

  • Do Web Sites Need To Be Accessible To the Blind?

    An advocacy group has sued Target Corp., claiming that Target's Web site is incompatible with software used by the blind and that such incompatibility is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

    January 26, 2007Carla J. Rozycki and David K. Haase

  • Superior Legal Web Sites to Watch

    We delve into our browser's bookmarks this month, to review the recently launched Web sites of interest to individuals in the legal profession.

    January 26, 2007Robert J. Ambrogi

  • International Internet Law

    As worldwide Internet use grows, international Internet legal difficulties increase. Resolution is commonly obtained through traditional international treaties, conventions and jurisdictions. However, some critical matters concerning international use and regulation of the Internet remain unsettled.

    January 26, 2007Jonathan Bick

  • Blogging Do's and Don'ts

    With the rush to create content, it's easy to forget that all business communications directed to the public are subject to a variety of laws, regulations and other legal concerns. This article provides a high-level overview of the key points to keep in mind as you assess whether your company-related blog is legally compliant.

    January 26, 2007Alysa N. Zeltzer and John E. Villafranco

  • Right of 'Informational Privacy' Upheld In NJ

    In a case of first impression under New Jersey law, an appeals court has held that Internet subscribers have a reasonable expectation of privacy, allowing a challenge to a subpoena that led to an indictment for computer-related theft.

    January 26, 2007Mary Pat Gallagher

  • IP News

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

    December 29, 2006Matt Berkowitz

  • When Winning Might Also Be Losing: The Preclusive Effects of Defending a Trademark Application or Registration

    Last summer, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Jean Alexander Cosmetics, Inc. v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., 458 F.3d 244 (3rd Cir. 2006), joined a majority of the courts of appeal in holding that it would give full preclusive effect to any of the alternative holdings of a prior adjudication. In so doing, the court further highlighted the necessity of thinking both offensively and defensively at the earliest stages of a trademark dispute, including during proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board ('TTAB').

    December 29, 2006Albert L. Sieber

  • Protecting Trade Dress in Once-Patented Subject Matter

    The recent decision, Fuji Kogyo Co. v. Pacific Bay Int'l, Inc., 461 F.3d 675 (6th Cir. 2006), confronts the question deliberately left unresolved in TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc., 532 U.S. 23 (2001), of whether a product design claimed in a prior utility patent can ever be protectable trade dress under the Lanham Act. Although setting a high bar to protectability, indeed a 'presumption' and 'heavy burden' that material claimed in a utility patent is functional and hence unprotectable once the patent term ends, the Supreme Court, of course, expressly elected not to foreclose such protection entirely. Thus, it refused the invitation of defendant TrafFix, and 'some of its amici,' to rule that 'the Patent Clause of the Constitution, Art. I '8, cl. 8, of its own force, prohibits the holder of an expired utility patent from claiming trade dress protection.' 532 U.S. at 35. Without itself addressing the constitutional question of how narrowly 'limited times' means 'limited times,' Fuji Kogyo does nothing to ease the burden in establishing trade dress protection for once-patented subject matter; it offers as well a new (if, perhaps, less than fully developed) analytical approach for applying the TrafFix presumption, asking whether the claimed trade dress would have infringed the expired patents.

    December 29, 2006Jonathan Moskin