LJN Newsletters

Celebrities often turn to the Lanham Act and state right of publicity laws to protect against exploitation of their name, image or voice in connection with the promotion of products or services. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently considered both Lanham Act and right of publicity claims in an action that pitted a Grammy winning musical artist against a major motion picture studio over the alleged use of the musician's likeness in a movie.

The agreements authors make with companies that publish their books ' and with the production companies that make films based on those books ' have changed significantly over the past several years. Due in part to the kind of films currently being produced and to available new technologies (particularly for books), these changes have introduced conflicting overlaps between the two types of contracts.

For multinational corporations, reducing the risks and concomitant expenses associated with corrupt employee behavior must be a priority. This article discusses the benefits of embedding compliance doctrine within operations, and how businesses could market integrity and compliance to gain a competitive advantage.

One of the thorniest issues in selling a law practice involves the issue of goodwill and how to value it. Goodwill is both an accounting term and a qualitative dimension. Understanding both helps the average lawyer better understand the sale of a law practice.

Companies that create and distribute mobile apps are under increasing pressure to protect user data. In 2013, the FTC and the California Attorney General each published privacy recommendations for mobile apps. Among other things, the FTC urges "privacy by design," advising companies to build privacy protections into apps from the outset.

Students and schools around the country are utilizing new digital technologies in ways many people did not imagine at the turn of the century ' and those technologies offer great promise. Unfortunately, the current legal framework designed to protect student privacy and safety has not kept up with the rapid advancements that have been created by the Digital Age.

On Dec. 13, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a landmark decision limiting the statutory authority of the International Trade Commission (ITC) to remedy indirect infringement, holding "that an exclusion order based on a violation of 19 U.S.C. '1337(a)(1)(B)(i) may not be predicated on a theory of induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. '271(b) where direct infringement does not occur until after importation of the articles the exclusion order would bar."

Soverain Software, the e-commerce company whose $2.5 million jury win for infringement of its "shopping cart" patents was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to take its appeal.