Features
Cybersticks and Cyberstones: Cybergriping after Bear Sterns and Taubman Company
Cybergriping occurs when one party (a 'cybergriper') i) establishes a Web site (the 'complaint site' or 'attack site') dedicated to the publication of complaints, claims, criticism, or parody of or against another party (the 'target company'), and ii) registers the Web site under a domain name comprised of the target's trademark and a pejorative suffix, such as 'sucks.com,' 'crooks.com' or 'ripoff.com.' Not surprisingly, target companies have attempted to combat this relatively new form of asymmetrical cyberwarfare by bringing suit against cybergripers under various legal theories, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution and cybersquatting.
IP NEWS
Highlights of the latest intellectual property cases from around the country.
Features
Package Patent Licensing After <i>Microsoft</i>
The law governing package licensing of patents is currently undergoing a significant change. Historically, package licenses were subject to a 'per se' liability under the controlling legal doctrines. Using this per se test, a package license could be rendered unenforceable absent any inquiry into the actual market effects of the license. The recent case of <i>United States v. Microsoft,</i> 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001), marks, however, the emergence of an antitrust doctrine called the 'rule of reason' that is likely to become the dominant legal doctrine for testing package licensing of patents. This is a significant change because the rule of reason is a market-based approach that balances the anticompetitive and pro-competitive benefits of the licensing practice. Thus, a package license may be held to be enforceable even if it would have failed the traditional per se test of the patent misuse doctrine or antitrust laws.
Copyright Law and the Non-Exclusive Rights to 'Link' and 'Crawl'
One of the most important issues faced by commercial purveyors of content on the Internet is how to protect their content. Much coffee and ink have been spilled over the question of how copyright, contract and tort law may be marshaled to maximize protection (or may be circumvented to minimize it).
Origin of Goods Under the Lanham Act: An Analysis of the Supreme Court's Decision in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
The Copyright Act and Patent Act were designed to protect originality and creativity. Courts, however, have generally been cautious about misusing or overextending the Lanham Act to areas traditionally occupied by patent or copyright law. <i>See TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc.</i>, 532 U.S. 23, 29 (2001).
Features
Bits & Bytes
Bridgeway Software, Inc. has added two new e-invoicing services to enhance its eCounsel product. These new Bridgeway services offer the choice of using either secure Web transport or flexible and simple e-mail to receive invoices. Both eCounsel Cost Management services enable corporate legal departments to receive invoices electronically from law firms directly into eCounsel, reducing processing time and eliminating manual data entry.
Features
The Hewlett-Packard 4100 MFP ' Much More Than a Printer
Certain areas of legal technology are really more exciting than others, but the necessary evil is that we, as lawyers, are in the paper business! We can't get around it no matter how hard we try ' we pump out reams of paper each week in an effort to further our client's interests. Keeping that in mind, there are several ways to move this paper and/or to print it! I have used several major printers in my legal career, but I can honestly say that none has given me more satisfaction, as well as, better printing quality, not to mention more over all functionality, than the Hewlett-Packard 4100 MFP (multifunction printer).
Features
Technology at Work: A Review of Syngence Services
Late last year, an old case was resurrected after an appeal resulted in our winning summary judgment being overturned. With the equivalent of 54 Bankers Boxes' worth of documents loaded on CDs as TIFF images without any associated indexing or coding, we were faced with the weighty task of processing those documents in a very short amount of time. The key issues were cost and functionality. We quickly needed usable data that could be manipulated, at a price acceptable to our client. Upon investigating our options regarding either manual or automated coding, we were introduced to the Syngence services by American Legal Copy ' our reprographics vendor in San Diego. We decided to give Syngence a try because their Syndex automated indexing service promised a basic database of information in a matter of days and their Synthetix-related content search feature intrigued us.
Features
<B><I>Practice Tip</B></I>Choosing a Storage Format, Part II: The World of DVDs
In the March issue of this newsletter, I wrote a column about the different methods of storage formats available today. In this month's column I would like to show you how a technology originally developed for the entertainment industry ' the DVD, can help you manage the ever increasing data storage requirements of today's businesses.
'How Technical Should I Get, and When?'
Last month, part one of this two-part article asked the question: 'How technical should I get, and when?' This time, we'll consider the same question as it applies to the trial itself: How technical you should get in selecting presentation media, and ultimately displaying it to the jury. We'll also explore some best practices for bringing technology into the courtroom with you, and some popular myths and misconceptions about how jurors view 'fancy' or 'slick' presentations.
Need Help?
- Prefer an IP authenticated environment? Request a transition or call 800-756-8993.
- Need other assistance? email Customer Service or call 1-877-256-2472.
MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTsA federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.Read More ›
- Compliance Officers and Law Enforcement: Friends or Foes?<b><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</b></i><p>As we saw in Part One, regulators have recently shown a tendency to focus on compliance officers who they deem to have failed to ensure that the compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) programs that they oversee adequately prevented corporate wrongdoing, and there are several indications that regulators will continue to target compliance officers in 2018 in actions focused on Bank Secrecy Act/AML compliance.Read More ›
- Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the RoughThere is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.Read More ›
- Structuring Strategies for Off-Balance-Sheet Treatment of Real Property LeasesThe Financial Accounting Standards Board released a new set of lease accounting standards, ASC 842, which went into effect earlier this year. Most significantly, publicly traded companies are now obligated to list all leases of 12 months or longer on their balance sheets as both assets and liabilities. Large private companies will follow suit in 2020.Read More ›
- Removing Restrictive Covenants In New YorkIn Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?Read More ›