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In June 2005, in two companion decisions, the California Supreme Court for the first time interpreted a line of recent, landmark U.S. Supreme Court opinions on punitive damages. In so doing, the California Supreme Court attempted to bring clarity to the politically charged and legally nettlesome issue of when punitive damage awards become constitutionally excessive. However, the court's decisions may raise more questions than they answer. Instead of setting a bright-line rule for lower courts and litigants to follow (such as a fixed ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages beyond which punitive damages must not go — something some courts of appeal attempted to do in response to the high court's landmark opinions), the court in <i>Lionel Simon v. San Paolo U.S. Holding Co., Inc.</i> No. S121723 (June 16, 2005) ("<i>Simon</i>"), and <i>Greg Johnson, et al., v. Ford Motor Company,</i> No. S121933 (June 16, 2005) ("<i>Johnson</i>"), elected to constrain, but fundamentally preserve, the possibility of truly punishing punitive damage awards.
The battle for class certification makes or breaks many lawsuits. Often, the certification decision hinges on whether there are questions of law or fact common to the class and whether the claims and defenses of the representative parties are typical of those of the class as a whole. Because the defense has no opportunity to question the class members themselves and to compare the claims and defenses of the named plaintiffs with those of the absent class members, it faces a big problem overcoming class certification: How is a defendant to know, let alone prove to the court: 1) that the claims of the class as a whole are not common and 2) that the claims of the named plaintiffs are sufficiently dissimilar to those of the class. In order to provide the court with record evidence on which it can base a decision as to whether individual or common issues predominate, parties should be permitted to engage in discovery of absent class members for class certification purposes.
Features
Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.
Features
The federal equipment marketplace is one of the bright spots in the economy. Many vendors and OEMs are now working with finance companies that have federal experience to compete for more than $45 billion in transactions that potentially qualify for a lease-financing solution. The size and volume of these transactions are expected to grow over the next several years.
Picture this scenario: You are the owner of a small to mid-sized business and have decided that it is in your best interest to lease your company's computer equipment. This may be because prudent financial planning dictates a lease versus buy decision; or you may want to be able to run the most current, up-to-date applications and the short time span of a computer lease allows you to do so. Whatever the case, when you make this decision, you have just assumed a very important responsibility — one that should not be taken lightly. You have just become personally responsible for the security of your own and your clients' personal data. It is your responsibility to personally safeguard the social security numbers, banking information, healthcare data, credit information, or anything else that could lead to catastrophic consequences if found in the wrong hands.
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Last month's article broke the assignment provisions of Chapter 4 of Revised Article 9 into four key issues: Defenses and claims of the account debtor and what constitutes an enforceable waiver of defenses (Section 9-403) and absent a waiver, under what circumstances are the account debtor's defenses and claims cut off (Section 9-404); Modification and substitution of the assigned contract and under what circumstances are modifications and substitutions effective against the assignee (Section 9-405); Discharge of the obligation and under what circumstances can the account debtor discharge its obligation by paying the assignor or the assignee (Section 9-406(a) - (c) and (g)); and Contractual or statutory restrictions on assignment and under what circumstances can such restrictions be overridden (Sections 9-406(d)(e) and (f); 9-407; 9-408; and 9-409). This month's article will review the relevant and developing case law under Chapter 4 of Revised Article 9 and provide a checklist of "Must Do" items.
The increasing transnational nature of communications systems and, more specifically, the frequency and ease with which Internet transactions may be handled from locations around the globe make more difficult the enforcement of certain patent rights. Technology allows transactions involving participants (human and/or machine) to be in more than one nation, and a working system or method to be fragmented across a number of jurisdictions. This type of scenario may frustrate efforts to enforce patent rights when no one jurisdiction includes all of the elements necessary to establish infringement. This situation arises most frequently in the context of the Internet where an accused infringer services U.S. customers using servers located outside the country. Although the U.S. courts have recognized this problem, the law in this area is far from settled and focusing on these issues from the beginning of the patent application drafting process will increase the chances of successfully enforcing such patents.
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In American law, courts exercise their awesome powers through injunctions. Courts have used injunctions to implement decisions addressing many of the most divisive social issues of the day: from integrating public schools to even arguably affecting presidential elections. </i>E.g., Bush v. Gore,</i> 531 U.S. 98 (2000) (enjoining Florida ballot recount); <i>Brown v. Board of Education,</i> 349 U.S. 294 (1955) (directing district courts to supervise "transition to a system of public education freed of racial discrimination"). <i>See New York Times Co. v. United States,</i> 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (refusing to grant injunction to prevent publication of "Pentagon Papers").
Last month's installment discussed the implications of different foreign filing strategies for establishing a priority date under 35 U.S.C. '102(e). This month's article discusses the situation under the European Patent Convention.
Features
In April, the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property released draft patent reform legislation known as the "Patent Reform Act of 2005, HR2795." This legislation proposes significant changes to the U.S. patent system that, if adopted, would in many respects transform the U.S. system and make it more akin to foreign patent systems. Calls for patent reform have been bandied about for a number of years, but recent criticisms of the U.S. Patent Office and the perception that it issues too many questionable patents appear to be driving the latest proposed reforms. It is worth noting, however, that a number of commentators have suggested it is not the present statutory scheme but instead the lack of adequate funding that is the main culprit behind the increase in the issuance of poor quality patents.