Duty to Protect: What Every Landlord and Tenant Should Know
Turn on the local news and you'll know that we live in violent times. This violence often manifests itself in the form of criminal activity. And as more and more commercial real estate owners and operators are learning, this criminal activity can translate into significant liability and damage awards, thanks to the recent willingness of courts around the country to impose on these entities a duty to protect those on their property or premises from third-party criminal acts.
In the Spotlight: Review Condominium Declaration When Drafting Lease for Commercial Unit
Special care should be given when drafting and negotiating a lease for a commercial condominium unit. Because the landlord in such a situation has rights and responsibilities as an owner of the condominium unit which comprises all or a portion of the leased premises, both parties to the transaction should review the relevant condominium declaration (which should consist principally of a recorded Declaration of Condominium and any amendments) to ensure that the lease terms comply with the condominium documents. The tenant will want assurances that the execution and delivery of the lease will not require any consents pursuant to the condominium declaration or violate the terms of the declaration or any other relevant documents. The landlord, on the other hand, will want to provide that the tenant will comply with all relevant terms of the declaration and not otherwise adversely affect the landlord's status as a condominium owner. Both parties will want to make sure that the lease accurately reflects their business deal.
Using Lease Provisions to Address Mold Growth
Mold growth has existed for centuries; litigation involving mold growth, however, has come into vogue only recently. Such litigation, despite its relative infancy, has proven costly to a variety of parties involved in the real estate industry — builders, property management companies, product manufacturers, commercial property owners, and insurers, among others. Verdicts in mold damage cases have occasionally reached multimillion dollar levels, while additional cases undoubtedly have settled for significant amounts. Landlords potentially could face major damage claims resulting from mold growth, and therefore it is recommended that landlords address mold-related issues by including in most leases specific provisions regarding mold growth.
When One Patent Application Begets 10: Today's Hyperproliferative U.S. Restriction Practice
Restriction practice (<i>ie</i>, the restriction of a patent application to prosecution of a single claimed invention (per filing fee)) has been around since the mid-1800s. In recent years, hyperproliferation of restriction requirements, especially in the biotechnology, chemical and software arts, has occurred. It has not been uncommon for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to assert that a patent application contains 10, 20, even 100 distinct inventions. In fact, the PTO itself recently stated that there had been an application in which the PTO had determined that there were 400,000 distinct inventions. Excessive use of restriction requirements has the potential to stagger a corporate patent budget, because multiple divisional applications must be filed to prosecute all claims, and hence, all "inventions" of the original application. If a company has budgeted for one patent application, it is then faced with filing multiple applications to receive the complete patent coverage that was envisioned. This leads to increased costs of the filing, prosecution and maintenance; multiplication of patents with overlapping subject matter and related claims; shortened statutory patent terms (depending on the timing of filing of the divisional applications), and a question of whether complete patent coverage is truly achieved by compartmentalizing the "invention" into many patents.
IP News
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news and cases from around the country.
Divorce in Sister States
We have in recent months discussed advising clients on choosing which state in which to file their divorce actions when they maintain sufficient ties to states other than New York such that those states may exercise jurisdiction. Some of the consequences of making these choices may not be immediately obvious, however, as illustrated by the recent decision rendered by the Court of Appeals in <i>Connelly v. Corcoran</i>, N.Y.L.J. 11/21/03, DOI p. 18, col. 4 (Ciparick, J.).
The Psychology of Money in Marriage
Money is not seen by these people as the commodity it should be. Instead, it is fraught with feelings, messages and beliefs from family, society and personal experience. If money were seen as a commodity, your job would be much clearer.
Divorcing Parents Go to School
In an attempt to bring New York State up to speed with practices in many other states, Judge Judith Kaye recently promulgated a plan for judges to more frequently order parents to complete psycho-educational training related to post-separation parenting. The order essentially establishes guidelines for judges as they make such orders and sets out criteria that must be met by the programs themselves if they are to receive approval for accepting court-ordered families.
