Regulation

The employer mandate under the ACA, which requires large employers to provide health insurance for their full-time employees or pay a penalty, is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2015. Regulations released by the IRS set forth the final rules that an employer must use to determine whether it is a large employer subject to the mandate. With just over six months to go, the time is ripe for employers to determine whether they will be considered large employers and if so, to determine appropriate next steps.

Bona fide intent was given new meaning by the TTAB. Lincoln National Corporation v. Anderson, exemplifies an apparent trend of the TTAB requiring greater proof of an applicant's "intent" as a jurisdictional prerequisite for filing an application or face a finding that the application is void ab initio. This is the paradigm of the "ticking time bomb" trademark nightmare with a very long fuse.

Criticized from the right and the left, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler last month tried to chart a middle path on net neutrality ' and pleased no one.

Corporate Counsel would do well to familiarize themselves with the ongoing process of reforms to the EU data protection rules due to their eventual compliance impact and because they constitute more than a simple upgrade to the existing rules.

In the last decade, the ITC has been an increasingly popular forum for litigating IP rights, largely because it offers a quick and forceful remedy in the form of an exclusion order, which can exclude infringing products from the U.S. market. In recent months, several important decisions have caused some to question the continuing vitality of the ITC as forum.

Search-engine results have become the lodestar of the Web for most users. Whether the user constructs a narrowly-tailored query designed to exclude inapplicable results, or a broad search designed as an introduction to a given topic, the algorithmic apparatus fueling search engines will usually produce pertinent information. As a matter of fact, this article on search results was in part fueled by using results acquired from a search engine.

Cybersecurity and data protection, more than ever, are priority items for the government and private sector. The government has reacted by proposing legislative "fixes" that would require organizations to satisfy basic levels of cybersecurity protection and disclose breaches or face fines. Whether a mandatory compliance model will be effective given the rapid pace by which technology advances is unclear. It may be unrealistic to expect the government's legislative pace to keep up with hackers.

The IRS's March 25, 2014 declaration that bitcoins are property, not currency, is the final piece of the carefully-crafted Federal approach to bitcoin regulation which greatly differs from the approach of other sovereign nations.