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Ambush marketing," a term coined by Jerry Wexler, manager of global marketing efforts for American Express in the 1980s, refers to the marketing activities of companies that manage to associate themselves, or their products or services, with high-profile events without paying to become an "official sponsor.
On Sept. 7, 2005, the Federal Circuit issued a hard-hitting decision for mavens of the agricultural sciences. The ruling touches on the patentability of a large portion of naturally occurring, protein encoding nucleotide sequences, referred to as "expressed sequence tags" or "ESTs."
Features
Highlights of the latest commercial leasing cases from around the country.
If you own a shopping center, a regional mall or a strip of stores in an office building, you very likely anticipate the more frequent business problems: Tenants don't pay their rent on time or don't pay the rent at all; tenants alter their premises, install signs or assign their leases without your consent; tenants use the wrong parking spaces or the wrong dumpsters. Generally, these common problems are an expected part of owning retail property. Upcoming Spotlight columns will discuss some of these problems. But for now, we address something unanticipated ...
The fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks reminded us that the mortal damage to the World Trade Center and adjacent buildings represented a level of destruction never experienced previously in the United States. Among other well-documented effects, the collapse of these structures gave rise to both hindsight and foresight among those who design, build, own and insure buildings. The disaster illustrated that even the tallest and apparently strongest of buildings are vulnerable, and even the deepest insurance reserves can be pumped dry. (The recent destruction caused by a natural disaster — Hurricane Katrina — further underscores this vulnerability.)
Landlords and tenants who want to understand judicial methods for measuring diminution of property value resulting from land use regulation must first understand the U.S. Supreme Court's takings jurisprudence. Of course, federal takings standards only set the "floor" of constitutional protection. State constitutions may set a higher level of constitutional protection. Although state courts may find a taking in situations where a federal court would not, their approaches to valuation generally mirror the various approaches taken by the federal courts. This two-part article will discuss several Supreme Court takings tests and offer some legal strategies for dealing with them.
As discussed in Part One last month, a tenant may be able to apply for and have its bank issue to its landlord a letter of credit ("L/C") to secure the tenant's obligations under a long-term lease. From the tenant's perspective, an L/C may be preferable to a large security deposit. An L/C will not necessarily tie up large amounts of the tenant's cash or other liquid collateral, as would a security deposit. Instead, the cash can be deployed as working capital in the tenant's business. Part One discussed six tips for drafting an L/C: 1) <i>Use the ISP (International Standby Practices 1998) instead of the UCP (Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits)</i>; 2) <i>Keep the Draw Conditions Simple</i>; 3) <i>Avoid Documents Not Within the Landlord's Control</i>; 4) <i>Allow Partial Draws</i>; 5) <i>Avoid Specification of Use of Funds</i>; 6) <i>Provide for Coverage of a Settlement Period After Lease Termination.</i> This conclusion provides six more tips that address issues such as providing coverage of the settlement period after lease termination, shortening the time period to honor the letter and using a transferable L/C. It also discusses matters of concern to the issuing bank.
While a law firm's internal media communications plan should be developed at the highest levels of the organization, the finalized program should not be limited to the activities of a select few partners and executives. It is important to remember that media inquiries can come to any staff member at any time. For this reason, it is critical that the entire firm ' from the managing partner to administrative assistants and other support staff ' be on board with the internal media communication program.
Features
With so many efficiency-boosting technologies available today to help you manage and grow your law firm, it is sometimes difficult to identify the right ones to implement. Given recent trends, it is abundantly clear that law firms are focusing their investments on technologies that can have the greatest impact on growing their bottom line. Due to its numerous benefits, including significant productivity gains, cost savings and employee safety, video conferencing is at the top of the list.
Features
Although the vast majority of large law firms and indeed perhaps every single large law firm may already have a Web site, and although most medium-sized firms have them as well, there still are many solo practitioners and smaller firms that do not. The failure to have a Web site already is, at the least, unusual; lawyers and firms that do not remedy that situation in the very near future will certainly be making a serious and perhaps fatal business and tactical mistake. So get cracking!
