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We live in a mobile society. Parents with a child in common may move from state to state, with or without the child involved in the moves. People with court orders granting custody or access to a child, sometimes including grandparents or siblings who have statutory rights, may not be in the same state as a child. They may need to enforce or modify custodial determinations.

Some New Yorkers have been attempting for years to get same-sex marriage legalized in this state, but the past year has been a true watershed. The latest development, of course, is the February 4 decision in <i>Hernandez v. Robles</i> by Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court, which held that same-sex couples have the same constitutional right to marry that opposite-sex couples do. It was the first state-level decision in New York in support of gay marriage rights.

In January and February's newsletters, we discussed the problems inherent in setting up parental access plans in this era in which parents are increasingly demanding a greater share of parenting time. The two charts below offer more options for allocating time between parents.

Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.

Important rulings you need to know.

With Americans spending more time at work, and with large numbers of women joining the workforce since World War II, the workplace has become a principal place where men and women seek and find their romantic partners, whether for a fling or a long-term relationship ending in marriage. Indeed, by some reports, nearly 60% of employees acknowledge engaging in a workplace romance. At the same time, however, American employers have been tempted to cultivate a near zero-tolerance culture for workplace romance given the development of sexual harassment law and the explosion of discrimination lawsuits alleging harassment. In many ways, it is impracticable for employers to maintain an outright ban on workplace romance: love will find a way, and employees may well hide relationships, which could end up being more problematic for the employer and just as likely to lead to an eventual lawsuit.

Overtime eligibility has developed into a snake pit for employers. The rate of claims for unpaid overtime compensation in court cases and agency proceedings has been increasing faster than that of any other type of employment litigation for several years now. During this period the number of federal overtime collective actions has been more than the number of federal class actions for all types of employment discrimination combined. The cumulative damages awarded to current and former employees for these claims have been enormous.

Federal Circuit decisions on how to interpret patent claim language are critically important. Unfortunately, however, recent Federal Circuit decisions do not reflect a unitary approach to patent claim interpretation. On July 21, 2004, the Federal Circuit issued an order granting a petition to rehear <i>en banc</i> the appeal in <i>Phillips v. AWH Corp.</i>, 363 F.3d 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The court "determined to hear this case <i>en banc</i> in order to resolve issues concerning the construction of patent claims," and invited the parties as well as <i>amicus curiae</i> to submit briefs on seven very specific questions relating to claim construction methodology and review on appeal. This article analyzes the <i>Phillips en banc</i> appeal focusing on the <i>amicus</i> briefing and responses to the Federal Circuit's seven questions.

Part one of this series, published last month, reviewed the current state of the law governing the availability of lost profits damages in patent infringement cases. This final installment addresses the calculation of these damages based on diverted sales.

In last month's issue, we discussed the prerequisites for a patentee to recover a royalty for his provisional rights. Provisional rights are intended to give a patent applicant interim protection for the disclosure of his invention from the date on which a patent application is published through the date of patent issuance. In the absence of provisional rights, infringement of the invention as published in the patent application would leave the patentee without redress for infringement while the application is being prosecuted. Without provisional rights, the patentee can stop infringement when a patent issues, but cannot seek compensation for prior infringement of the published patent application. <br>To address the vulnerabilities of a patent applicant prior to issuance of a patent, Congress enacted the Provisional Rights subsection as part of the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. Notable among a patent applicant's provisional rights is the right to assess a "reasonable royalty" for use of an invention as claimed in the published application. 35 U.S.C. &sect;154(d) (2000). As the Director of the USPTO commented, "In practice, this would serve as a brake on potential infringers ... from blatantly infringing because they know once the patent is issued, they're liable [for infringing the patent application]." Sabra Chartrand, <i>A New Law Removes Some Secrecy From the Applications</i>, N.Y. Times, Dec. 4, 2000, at C6. <br>Last month's installment of this article described the prerequisites required to raise a patentee's provisional rights. First, the USPTO must grant a patent from the patent application. Second, the accused infringer must have actual notice of the published patent application. Third, provisional rights are only available if the invention as claimed in the patent is substantially identical to the invention as claimed in the published patent application. Last month's installment also described the nuances of each requirement, and also explored unsettled legal questions relating to each. This month's article explores the interplay between the publication requirement and the Provisional Rights Subsection.