In Brief....
November 16, 2004
New York Oct. 1. New York Gov. George Pataki (R) signed a law that will give same-sex partners the right to visit their partners in hospitals and nursing…
Custody Update
November 16, 2004
The Fall season has witnessed movement on issues of child custody and adoption by same-sex couples. These issues do not attract the same amount of attention from the general media has marriage, but they could change partnership and parenting law as radically as marriage-related lawsuits and legislation.
<i>Goodridge</i> Decision Spawns Action
November 16, 2004
Although the average American might feel that the reality of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts materialized overnight, activists who have worked on the issue say that the <i>Goodridge</i> decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in November 2003 was not a complete surprise. <i>Goodridge</i> was the result of a well-planned, long-term strategy by same-sex marriage proponents to bring the issue into the legal, cultural, and political mainstream.
Litigation
November 16, 2004
The majority of Americans support traditional marriage, and that's why there are 13 states going to the polls to amend their constitutions," said Mathew D. Staver, president and chief counsel of Liberty Counsel, an organization that advocates for laws that maintain the traditional definition of marriage. <br>While opponents of same-sex marriage are likely to win every state amendment vote, some unusual legal issues have arisen nonetheless. Here are updates on the most interesting recent developments.
First Decision on DOMA's Constitutionality
November 16, 2004
Now that Massachusetts allows same-sex marriage, the number of plaintiffs with standing to contest the validity of DOMA should ensure a steady stream of such challenges.
Design-Around Patent Strategies for Patentees and Competitors
November 09, 2004
Patentees and competitors must take proactive steps to handle design-around issues related to intellectual property matters. Using a design-around strategy, a competitor can produce an equivalent product that is legally non-infringing on a patentee's issued patent. Successful design-around strategies can present time and cost savings in terms of research and development costs, legal fees and potential litigation costs and also can minimize the delay in commercializing an equivalent product. For example, by designing around, a competitor has the incentive to potentially capture a significant market share by producing an equivalent product while undercutting the patentee's profits.
Patent Cross-Licenses: A Financial Asset Hedge
November 09, 2004
In today's age of strong patent rights, enhanced visibility and budgetary clout are the norm for intellectual property professionals — and are generally regarded as good things. With the creation of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ("CAFC") in 1982, we have seen a number of distinct pro-patent trends. These have included a robust presumption of patent validity, higher damage awards for acts of infringement, more flexible approval standards introduced by the PTO, and an increasingly granted right on the part of patent holders to seek injunctive relief to stop the production of infringing products. Prior to the creation of the unitary CAFC, patent rights were less certain to be enforced through either the award of high monetary damages or sweeping injunctive relief.
Problems Proving Infringement of Method Claims
November 09, 2004
The patent applicant can act pre-emptively, even pending further development of legal doctrines specific to infringement of business and network-related methods, to draft and prosecute claims that will "catch" infringing activity at as many conceivable loci along the network as possible, and thwart competitors' ability to readily avoid infringement by parsing method steps creatively.
