The Roberts Court on Antitrust
October 30, 2007
By the end of its last term, the Supreme Court decided four significant antitrust cases, resulting in one of the most antitrust-focused terms in the Court's history. In rendering decisions favorable to the defendants in all four cases, the Court quickly drew the dreaded 'pro-business' label. Commentators on the left criticized the decisions as marking a hard-right turn on antitrust policy, while those on the right lauded the Court's restoration of free-market principles to competition analysis. These broad pronouncements overstate the similarities among the cases, which arose in a wide range of industries and raised quite different legal issues.
An Upbeat View: Nonlawyer Ownership of Law Firms
October 29, 2007
This article examines the two main objections to outside ownership of law firms. The first is that it would permit nonlawyers to interfere with lawyers' exercise of professional judgment. The second is that the firm's duty to its shareholders would lead it to focus blindly on maximizing profits.
Prescription Drugs: Consumer Fraud in Sales and Marketing
October 29, 2007
Claims of consumer fraud are difficult and rarely succeed in the context of a pharmaceutical product liability action. They are, however, troublesome, because the pleading of such a claim often opens the door to extensive discovery of the company's sales and marketing departments. If the defendant cannot succeed in obtaining a dismissal prior to trial, it may still permit the jury to hear evidence of sales tactics and strategies that often paint the manufacturer in a less-than-favorable light. Companies should be aware of the potential for such claims and plan their sales and marketing strategies accordingly.
Navigating the Potential Traps in Licensing Content for Online Uses
October 29, 2007
Copyright owners who are considering licensing their content for online exploitations must understand that they are venturing into still largely uncharted waters with few reliable partners. It's better than it was in 2000 ' or even 2003 ' but it's still not an entirely stable environment with dangerous shoals along the route. Don't assume that words you have seen in contracts for decades have the same meaning to your online licensee as they would to a court.
Practice Tip: The Earning Capacity of Business Owners
October 29, 2007
The owner of a business can claim as lost earning capacity in a personal-injury action only the working time lost due to injuries and harm to future earning capacity, not the business' alleged profits in perpetuity.
Bluecasting or Bluespamming?
October 29, 2007
Bluetooth, the moniker of the popular wireless technology, is named after a 'Viking' king famous for having united several Scandinavian countries, at least temporarily. Bluetooth, however, was not a Viking in the popular sense ' he used cunning more often than violence to achieve his objectives. It is perhaps appropriate, then, and certainly no surprise that marketers ' e-commerce firms and their marketing reps and agents among them ' have begun using Bluetooth technologies to do some 'Viking' of their own. Bluetooth Marketing ' also called Bluespamming ' uses Bluetooth technology to reach nearby potential consumers and offer them coupons, downloads, and other product or service information.
Selling Your e-Commerce Company For Private Equity Money
October 29, 2007
Entrepreneurs have traditionally dreamed of creating family businesses that would last for generations. Certainly, everyone has seen the stickers and other marketing testifying to a firm's and its founding family's decades of service, and their stability and track record. But in today's constantly changing e-commerce world, a business often must reinvent itself several times in one generation, much less plan to last for several.
