Bait and Switch: From the Showroom to the Courtroom
September 29, 2008
<i>American Seating Company v. USSC Group, Inc.</i>, which relates to a patent infringement litigation, provides interesting considerations for business managers with responsibility for accused, infringing, and/or non-infringing "alternative" products as well as for legal and financial professionals who deal with the determination of economic damages in patent infringement matters.
IP News
September 29, 2008
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news and cases from around the country.
The Impact of the Internet on Strict Product Liability Law
September 29, 2008
Strict product liability emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as a potent force shaping the way product manufacturers do business in America. Although the relevant common law of each state has been modified from time to time since its inception, the basic parameters of the theory have been settled for some time. Now, however, market conditions are changing dramatically, and the law is likely to change with it.
Keeping Up with Online Brand and Other Related Scams and Frauds
September 29, 2008
The Internet has also provided an almost unguarded playground to allow thieves and other criminals to develop and unleash sophisticated scams and frauds on unsuspecting users. This conduct shows up in the almost unlimited amount of Internet scams and frauds active at any point, yet because of the nature of the Internet, it is almost impossible for a small business, consumer or e-commerce attorney to stay up-to-date.
Safeguarding Brands
September 29, 2008
Because the Internet provides opportunistic criminals with a powerful platform for marketing their tainted goods on a mass scale, and with limited funding and personnel, law-enforcement agencies are unable to make a noticeable dent in the fight against counterfeits, leaving companies with the costly burden of protecting their customers. In the face of ubiquitous and pervasive budget cuts, today's innovative in-house counsel deploys non-traditional responses via technology, to show senior executives some visible, cost-effective results.
What Your Terms and Conditions Tell Your Customers
September 29, 2008
What businessperson hasn't complained about how lawyers ruin deals? The simple handshake and bar-napkin agreement too often turns into hundreds of pages of fine print, with hourly billing to match. Yet neither party really knows whether it all actually states the deal as each understood it over handshakes. Sometimes the fallout begins because the contracts are unintelligible to the layman ' not good. Other times, the lawyer may have taken far longer than the deal allowed to write a contract, or simply blew the budget ' also not good. Whatever the cause, these problems lead many businesspeople to wonder whether their lawyers are for them, or against them.
Profits Per Me (PPM)
September 29, 2008
Lateral partner candidates need to look beyond PPP and focus on what the authors call PPM ' "profits per me." Averages are great, but how much of the law firm's profits can one fairly expect to get?
