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Part One of this article addressed issues surrounding the name and address of the subject building and the landlord's right to prescribe rules and regulations. The conclusion discusses lease provisions pertaining to legal fees and expenses and the sale or exchange and assignment by the landlord.
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A decision is being contemplated to close one or more stores. Factors for closing stores may vary. Possibly the store is not performing well, the store does not fit within the new prototype, the retailer is pulling out of a geographic area, or a host of other business reasons may be factors considered in determining to close a store.
In <i>Kelo v. City of New London</i>, 125 S. Ct. 2655 (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the long-standing principle that governments can condemn private land in order to carry out area-wide redevelopment projects. The decision, which affirms the legal status quo, has been spun as a grievous invasion of property rights that now threatens every American home. In this article, we review the reaction of legislators at the national level to the <i>Kelo</i> case and, by examining one state's legislative response, discuss the issues raised by state legislation.
Intellectual property, be it in the form of trademarks, copyrights, or patents, represents a significant investment by the owner. The intellectual property owner, whether a large, multinational corporation or a sole inventor, makes the investment for a single purpose — to increase the value of its business. When a patent practitioner invests a client's resources and returns no significant value, that practitioner has failed to meet the client's expectations. This article addresses steps that a savvy practitioner can take to hedge the likely outcome of the patent procurement process.
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The Federal Circuit's <i>en banc</i> decision in <i>Phillips v. AWH Corp.</i>, 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005), provides a reminder, for patent prosecution attorneys and patent litigators alike, of the types of evidence that can be used to support a patent claim construction. In short, intrinsic evidence ' namely, the claim language, specification and prosecution history ' remains the primary source materials for interpreting patent claims. On the other hand, extrinsic evidence ' namely, dictionaries, treatises and expert testimony ' may not have the same persuasive status previously accorded by the Federal Circuit's decision in <i>Texas Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc.</i>, 308 F.3d 1193 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Nonetheless, extrinsic evidence retains its role in helping to explain the meaning of claim terms as understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art. Extrinsic evidence also can be useful to explain the "context" of the invention that informs any claim construction.
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Financial service companies make their money primarily through two core intellectual assets. The first is their expert knowledge of ways to create, expose, tranche and protect asset value. The second is their ability to project their expertise as embodied in their brand. Aside from the specialized intellectual asset merchant banks, financial service companies do not know how to value their knowledge nor their brand. Furthermore, historically they have not paid much attention to which of their global affiliates created the intellectual asset nor which of their affiliates deployed the asset — an activity that creates the accounting and financing phenomenon of "transfer pricing." The importance, more specifically the urgency, in rectifying this informational vacuum arises from recent changes in international tax law pertaining to the pricing of intangible assets that are transferred among Multinational Entity ("MNE") affiliates. This article, targeting the financial service industry, briefly summarizes the fears of the industry concerning transfer pricing and intellectual property ("IP"); cites an example of a recent innovation that has led to a revolution in the way bonds are priced identifying possible IP transfer pricing red flags; and concludes with suggestions for process improvements.
<b>1) Tell Your Patent Attorney What You Want Your Patent to Do.</b> IP attorneys are continuously told that we should be business partners with our clients, not just patent scribes. But there are lots of ways to protect an invention. Be open and just tell us: Is the patent "for show or for go"? Is it perceived to be vital to the company or a "home run" for the university, or is it a safety filing to cover a limited advance to keep a productive inventor (or top boss) happy. Is it intended to be a shot in the dark, or part of a shotgun blast of applications into an important emerging technology? Don't walk into a car lot and say "I want your best car!" unless you really mean it.