LJN Newsletters

A dismissed lawsuit over the rights to the Ghost Rider comic book character has been revived and sent back for trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided that Gary Friedrich, who claimed he created the flaming-skull motorcycle superhero, will get a chance to challenge Marvel Comics' claim that the character was the result of a collaborative process within Marvel.

In the last several years, private investment groups and wealthy, experienced business owners have showed increased interest in purchasing franchisees. At the same time, food and retail franchisors have moved more deeply into developing units at nontraditional locations. These twin developments have been, for the most part, highly positive for the franchising industry. However, both trends have raised one major challenge for franchisors: negotiating contract terms that deviate from their standard FDD.

Finance Companies' Rights to Collect
True Lease vs. Security Interest: In General
Lessors' Damages: Measures and Entitlement
Vendor Issues
End-of-Term Lease Provisions
Forum Selection, Jurisdiction and Choice of Law
Assignments of Leases

Over the past several years, there has been a national flurry of civil actions brought primarily by pornographic filmmakers alleging copyright infringement by individual file-sharers using the BitTorrent computer protocol.Typically, the copyright holders allege that users illegally downloaded, reproduced and distributed at least a portion of the film at issue using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer protocol that allows users to transfer large files on the Internet.

In Biosig Instruments, Inc. v. Nautilus, Inc., the Federal Circuit held that the functional claim language of "spaced relationship" was definite in view of the inherent parameters of the claimed apparatus, notwithstanding the lack of any specific quantification of exactly how wide the spacing should be.

The DMCA prohibits the circumvention of digital rights management technologies and other similar content access or copy restrictions on copyrighted works. As such, it has long been understood that the circumvention of computer programs to enable interoperability of non-approved software applications ' a practice commonly referred to as "jailbreaking" ' was forbidden under the DMCA.

Corporate law departments acknowledge the need to manage and control the unabated and explosive growth of digital information, yet understand that the traditional approach will not work. Compounding the problem are regulatory and privacy issues.

International borders are no longer a barrier in e-commerce business. Enterprises often have multinational corporate parents, subsidiaries, suppliers and customers. Even smaller companies can develop e-commerce websites and reach out to prospects in all corners of the world.