Into the Dark: Patent Trend Post America Invents Act and <i>Alice</i>
January 31, 2016
Ah, the good old days. When the America Invents Act was being pushed through Congress in 2011, proponents of the proposed changes expounded on the virtues of a system that mirrored the patent practices of the majority of the industrialized world. But the unforeseen consequences of both the AIA and the seminal 2014 Supreme Court decision in <i>Alice v. CLS Bank</i> have created a hostile environment for patent portfolios, which has negative implications for investment in innovation and startups.
<b><i>Online Extra:</b></i> The Anti-Social Network
January 26, 2016
In 2011, a 23-year-old student of data privacy law wondered how private his data was. Max ?Schrems of the University of Vienna asked Facebook for everything they had on him. Schrems sent two emails and got no response. A letter. No response. A phone call. No response. Then, as his lawyer, Wolfram Proksch of PFR in Austria, tells the story, ?Schrems received a mystery package in the mail with the data he had requested, perhaps from a secret privacy sympathizer at Facebook.
SEC Sets Limits on Crowdfunding
December 31, 2015
On Oct. 30, 2015, the SEC issued new regulations to complete its work for implementing the sections of the JOBS Act that, for the first time, permit use of the Internet to raise equity financing. These latest regulations are scheduled to go into effect on May 16, 2016.
Standing to Assert Claims for Online Privacy Breaches
December 31, 2015
Many believe that we are on the precipice of a deluge of litigation ' both individual and multiparty/class action ' concerning how an individual's data is handled and the remedy, if any, if that data is misused or wrongfully disclosed. A case recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court involves the intersection of the Internet and privacy laws and may affect the future of litigation against companies that operate on the Web as well as traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.
