Webinar: Accelerate Your Career
February 07, 2014
What is the top skill for career professionals in climbing the corporate ladder? It is the ability to sell your ideas and funding requests.
<i>Soul Men</i> Ruling Shows Shift To Transformative Use Test
January 31, 2014
Celebrities often turn to the Lanham Act and state right of publicity laws to protect against exploitation of their name, image or voice in connection with the promotion of products or services. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently considered both Lanham Act and right of publicity claims in an action that pitted a Grammy winning musical artist against a major motion picture studio over the alleged use of the musician's likeness in a movie.
Is the Internet a Safer Place for Content Owners?
January 31, 2014
Many battles have been fought in courtrooms across the United States over the unauthorized Internet sharing of copyrighted books, music, movies and television shows. These include disputes over increasingly more sophisticated software products and websites that appear designed to respond to the latest court rulings over the scope of the DMCA "safe harbor" protections and the elements required to establish secondary copyright infringement liability.
Tensions Between Authors' Contracts for Book Publishing and Film Production Rights
January 31, 2014
The agreements authors make with companies that publish their books ' and with the production companies that make films based on those books ' have changed significantly over the past several years. Due in part to the kind of films currently being produced and to available new technologies (particularly for books), these changes have introduced conflicting overlaps between the two types of contracts.
Global Corruption Enforcement
January 31, 2014
For multinational corporations, reducing the risks and concomitant expenses associated with corrupt employee behavior must be a priority. This article discusses the benefits of embedding compliance doctrine within operations, and how businesses could market integrity and compliance to gain a competitive advantage.
The Dimensions of 'Goodwill' in a Law Practice Sale
January 31, 2014
One of the thorniest issues in selling a law practice involves the issue of goodwill and how to value it. Goodwill is both an accounting term and a qualitative dimension. Understanding both helps the average lawyer better understand the sale of a law practice.
Improving Mobile App Privacy
January 31, 2014
Companies that create and distribute mobile apps are under increasing pressure to protect user data. In 2013, the FTC and the California Attorney General each published privacy recommendations for mobile apps. Among other things, the FTC urges "privacy by design," advising companies to build privacy protections into apps from the outset.
<i>Commentary</i> New Laws Needed To Protect Student Data
January 31, 2014
Students and schools around the country are utilizing new digital technologies in ways many people did not imagine at the turn of the century ' and those technologies offer great promise. Unfortunately, the current legal framework designed to protect student privacy and safety has not kept up with the rapid advancements that have been created by the Digital Age.
'Moneyball' for Litigators
January 31, 2014
Big data is ubiquitous these days, but still largely untapped in legal circles. Litigators can take a page out of a sports team's playbook and use the patterns and trends found in data to make more informed decisions about case staffing, spend management, case strategy and probable outcomes.
Federal Circuit Limits ITC's Indirect Patent Infringement Authority
January 31, 2014
On Dec. 13, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a landmark decision limiting the statutory authority of the International Trade Commission (ITC) to remedy indirect infringement, holding "that an exclusion order based on a violation of 19 U.S.C. '1337(a)(1)(B)(i) may not be predicated on a theory of induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. '271(b) where direct infringement does not occur until after importation of the articles the exclusion order would bar."
