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The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has just issued an opinion that changes precedent in U.S. patent law, namely, Knorr-Bremse Systeme Fuer Nutzfahrzeuge GMBH v. Haldex, __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. 2004). Previously, for a company that was accused of patent infringement, the general law was that the company had "an affirmative duty to exercise due care" to avoid infringement, including "the duty to obtain competent legal advice from counsel before initiation of any possible infringing activity." Underwater Devices, Inc. v. Morrison-Knudsen Co., 717 F.2d 1380, 1389-90 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Failure to obtain such legal advice was considered a key factor in determining whether infringement is willful. A finding of willful infringement can be devastating, as it can subject a defendant to enhanced damages (up to three times actual damages) and/or the payment of the plaintiff's attorneys' fees. 35 U.S.C. §§284 and 285.

Your client has an invention. He tells you he came up with the invention 18 months ago and that he hasn't offered the invention for sale and hasn't publicly disclosed it. He's meeting with you today because he has evaluated his prototype and finally decided to direct financial resources toward obtaining a patent. He asks you to prepare a patent application. Everything seems fine, right? Maybe not. A bar date might have been purchased along with the prototype.

In Part One of this article, we examined the risks to intellectual property (IP) value that would most preoccupy IP professionals, including: third-party risks for infringement liability, first-party risks to IP assets, and Directors & Officers (D&O) risks arising out of relevant valuation and disclosure. However, as IP specifically accounts for a higher ratio of market capitalization and shareholder value for publicly traded corporations, strategic choices relating to IP impact the firm's financial fortunes in more subtle ways, commensurate with that increased value. To cite one salient example: For IP-rich companies, tax planning is increasingly intertwined with Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) strategy.

Highlights of the latest franchising news from around the country.

Highlights of the latest franchising cases from around the country.

The tide of franchise regulation in Europe continues to flow, as the Belgian parliament is the latest of the EU member state legislatures to consider enacting not one, but four distinct franchise laws. Does this make regulation of franchising on an EU-wide basis inevitable?

No longer is electronic discovery reserved for the rare case involving complex technical issues, or those involving large damage claims. In modern-day complex litigation, as well as simpler cases involving individuals, the proverbial "smoking gun" is as likely to be a deleted e-mail or electronically stored draft document as it is a "hard copy" of a document. The proliferation of computers not only in the office but in the home — and, indeed, portable computers that travel with the user — greatly increases the odds that many discoverable documents will be available, and perhaps only available, in electronic format. This article provides a general primer on the subject of electronic discovery, discussing some recurring issues in the case law, as well as issues that should be of particular interest to franchisors and franchisees.

Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.