Filing Multiple IPRs for One Patent
The America Invents Act established <i>inter partes</i> review (IPR) proceedings at the USPTO. Under this new regime, any person other than the patent owner is able to challenge the validity of a patent with a patent office trial. In a growing number of cases, the validity of a patent is determined at the USPTO prior to a district court dispute on infringement. The cost and time benefits of an IPR has encouraged hundreds of Petitioners to partake in these new proceedings.
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CFPB Gets Real About Bitcoin Risks
Consumers should be cautious when using bitcoin and alert the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to any problems with the virtual money, the agency said last month after a government watchdog this summer urged the CFPB to engage more on the currency.
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Prenups
With pandemic use of Facebook, Twitter and other online information-sharing tools creating heightened concerns over privacy, more couples are opting to put language into their prenuptial agreements restricting what their future spouse can reveal about them online.
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The Appropriate Interest Rate Under ' 506(b)
Discussion of the ongoing battle for post-petition interest for over-secured creditors under section 506(b).
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Using IRA Funds to Purchase Life Insurance
Many individuals desire to acquire insurance on their lives using funds held in a qualified retirement plan. The acquisition of insurance using funds within an IRA is beneficial since the Plan uses tax deductible dollars to acquire the insurance. Furthermore, the Plan Funds are not otherwise being directly used by qualified plan participant (Participant) for the Participant.
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Analyzing Child Custody Reports
This is the fourth installment of a four-part series offering a model for attorneys to use when faced with the task of making sense out of a custody assessment.
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Gratuities and Honest Services Fraud
As noted in Part One of this article, in <I>Skilling v. United States</I>, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the scope of the honest services fraud statute 18 U.S.C. ' 1346) to "bribery and kickback" schemes, yet did not define what a "bribery" or "kickback" scheme must entail. So the question becomes this: Must a "bribe or kickback" involve a <I>quid pro quo</I>?
<b><i>Online Extra</b></i> Fans Who Create Facebook Pages for TV Shows Don't Own Those Pages
In a ruling with potentially far-reaching repercussions in the world of social media, a South Florida federal judge has ruled that a woman who created a Facebook page for the television series 'The Game' has no proprietary interest in the page that attracted 6.2 million likes.
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<b><i>Online Extra</b></i> LinkedIn Reaches Deal in Privacy Litigation
A security breach that opened more than 6 million passwords to online viewing and spawned a putative class action will cost LinkedIn Corp. $1.25 million to settle.
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<b><i>Online Extra</b></i> $123 Million 'Revenge Porn' Suit Filed Against Facebook
A Houston woman filed a $123 million 'revenge porn' lawsuit against Facebook Inc. and a former 'friend,' alleging that the ex-friend launched an objectionable 'imposter' Facebook site under her name and that Facebook took months to deactivate the site, despite her repeated requests.
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MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›