7′ 2.5″

By Doug Powers via Michelle Malkin Blog   Article

Obamacare regs: The paper skyscraper

“That stack appears to be just a couple feet short of being required to have a flashing aircraft warning light at the top.

Warner Todd Huston has the dimensions:

This is over 20,000 pages and measures 7′ 2.5″. These are all the Obamacare regulations published in the Federal Register up through last week. Then last Friday they added another 828 pages.

Why is there a red ribbon around on that stack of regulations?”

Inside Intellectual Ventures, the most hated company in tech

By Jim Kerstetter and Josh Lowensohn  from CNET, News, Politics and Law   Article

“To many in the high-tech business, a troll plots his schemes in a white office building on a hill in this leafy suburb of Seattle. This is the home of Intellectual Ventures, which, depending on whom you ask, is either the biggest, most aggressive patent troll on the planet or a pioneering company that’s helping inventors get their fair share.

The question of “whom you ask” is a big one, of course. Since it was founded in 2000 by Microsoft veterans Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung, Intellectual Ventures has — through $5 billion in investment funds and its own brainstorming efforts — collected nearly 70,000 “intellectual assets” on technologies ranging from nuclear power to camera lenses. It currently controls about 40,000 intellectual assets.

In the process, Intellectual Ventures has become a boogieman for aspiring entrepreneurs and big tech companies alike. (Ironic, since some of its early investors include Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, and eBay.) Rolling out a new feature for your Web site? Have a better way to reflect light through a camera lens? Better watch out, Intellectual Ventures might have a patent for that.” …

Nathan Myhrvold is a very, very, very smart man. He may be the wealthiest man on Earth when all is said and done,” said Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of the health care startup CareZone and the former chief exec of Sun Microsystems. “Congratulations on arbitraging the patent system.”"

Patent Research Just Got Easier

From Inc.   Article

“Google knows a thing or two about patents and has been the target of plenty of lawsuits involving them over the years. So it makes sense the company trying to “organize the world’s information” would come up with a better way to search for patents. In a blog post on Aug. 14 the company announced two new features for its Patent Search tool: The ability to search the European Patent Office, and a new way to find “prior art.”

The ability to search prior art is key when it comes to proving your idea deserves a patent. ”Typically, patents are granted only if an invention is new and not obvious,” wrote Google engineering manager Jon Orwant. “To explain why an invention is new, inventors will usually cite prior art such as earlier patent applications or journal articles.” But that process usually involves a laborious search.

In one click, Prior Art Finder searches multiple sources–Google Patents, Google Scholar, Google Books, and the Web–for related content that existed at the time a patent was filed. To learn more about how start-ups might use this tool, I checked in with Van Lindberg, an IP and open-source attorney with the international corporate law firmHaynes and Boone.

How will the Prior Art Finder tool be userful to patent-holders and patent-seekers?”

Where Free Speech Goes to Die: The Workplace

By Michael Dolgow in Bloomberg Businessweek   Article

“In America you can say pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want to say it. Unless, that is, you’re at work. Simply put, there is no First Amendment right to “free speech” in the workplace—potentially perilous for many employees in a polarized political year with a tight presidential race. …

Bosses and those who work under them are not equal when it comes to free-speech legal claims. Employers have the right to take action against any employee who engages in political speech that company leaders find offensive. With a few narrow exceptions the Constitution and the federal laws derived from it only protect a person’s right to expression from government interference, not from the restrictions a private employer may impose, lawyers say.

Employers are not similarly restricted in expressing their political views or encouraging support for a particular candidate or cause. Not only can employers remind employees of the upcoming election and encourage them to vote, but they can base continued employment on whether a worker agrees to contribute money or time to the boss’s favorite political candidate, so long as there’s no state law prohibiting it. (Eight states and the District of Columbia have laws protecting employees from such mandates.)”

Twitter Empowers Engineers With New Patent Agreement

By  Nick Bilton   Article

“Under a new agreement, a patent awarded to Loren Brichter, a former Twitter employee, can only be used for offensive litigation if Mr. Brichter approves.

It seems that every week there is a new set of patent lawsuits in the tech universe. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Motorola Mobility, Google and many more companies are continually enmeshed in vicious patent battles. At the same time, the engineers who develop the ideas that in turn become the patents at the center of these suits often feel exploited. …

In a blog post on the company Web site, Twitter said it had developed a new type of patent agreement with employees that will give legal rights to engineers and designers who are awarded a patent, halting any potential of the patent’s being used for offensive litigation. The new patent agreement states that any patent awarded to an employee at Twitter cannot be use offensively, even after the employee has left the company. This means Twitter could not sue another company or person without the consent of the engineer to whom the patent was awarded. Twitter can, however, use the patent for defensive purposes.”

Best disclaimer language ever

By Barry Ritholtz    Article

“I like a legal department that has a sense of humor. This is the standard disclaimer that Contango Oil & Gas Company (MCF) includes with their quarterly earnings reports:

Lawyer Stuff

The future is unknowable. We have good intentions but all of our projections and estimates will be wrong, and could be materially wrong. Wildcat exploration is expensive, speculative and potentially dangerous. An offshore spill or explosion would be enormously expensive. We have insurance but it may not be enough. You could lose your entire investment. Don’t be lazy – read our 10-Q’s, 10-K’s and press releases, and if you lose money – please no tears.

“Don’t forget about risk-free T-bills in your portfolio…After inflation and taxes you’ll likely only lose 5-10% of your investment.”

- Contango V.P. Investor Relations”

This was our compromise with legal

By Tom Fisburne Marketoonist

“A friend told me recently that if she listened to her lawyers on a new product launch, the packaging would be blank. Marketing and legal are often the functions with the greatest friction. A legal review of an idea is akin to running the gauntlet. There is inevitably risk in any idea. Removing the risk entirely can sand the edges off the idea. Yet much of this tension is a result of how the relationship is set up. I recently talked to a brand manager for Axe…
read the rest…”

Patently Obvious

**By DOUG LICHTMAN   Article

“ON Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether to fundamentally alter the way American patent law is litigated. Specifically, in the context of an otherwise unremarkable patent dispute, the Court has promised to decide the degree to which juries should be allowed to question whether a patent should have been issued at all. …

A patent’s validity is first judged at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, where thousands of experts on everything from business practices to stereo equipment toil to evaluate every submitted application. It’s a herculean task: inventors have filed more than 450,000 applications every year since 2007; last year the number was close to 500,000. To accurately evaluate all of those purported inventions would cost tens of billions of dollars, multiples more than what the Patent Office receives in federal outlays or could plausibly raise on its own with application fees.

As a result, patent examiners give most applications only a quick look, spending on average 16 hours to 17 hours per application — nowhere near the time needed to assess whether an invention is truly new and not obvious. Worse, those hours are typically spread over two to three years, and they are interspersed with work on hundreds of other open files. …

The extent and quality of Patent Office review is also limited by the fact that the process is not adversarial. Indeed, the only parties involved in Patent Office review are the applicant and the applicant’s lawyers — people with an obvious incentive to see the application move forward. Contrast that with litigation, where patent plaintiffs have to square off against very motivated patent defendants.”  – Article

Patently absurd

**By James Temple   Article

Patently absurd system encourages litigation, not innovation

“In 2001, a Melbourne, Australia, man won a patent for an ingenious invention he called a “circular transportation facilitation device.” That is to say, using nothing more than his thesaurus, he managed to reinvent the wheel.

For those tempted to laugh it off as the antics of Aussies, note that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office saw fit in 2002 to hand a 5-year-old from Minnesota the exclusive rights to use, sell or license a method for swinging on a swing. (It will surprise no one that his father was a patent attorney.)

These are silly examples that point to a serious problem: Patent offices around the globe are apparently only too willing to grant rights to inventors who haven’t done a whole lot of inventing. And businesses are only too ready to rush their claims to court to gain an upper hand in the market or draw revenue from dubious innovations.

The number of U.S. patent lawsuits has tripled since the early 1990s, according to research by law Professors James Bessen and Michael Meurer, the authors of “Patent Failure.” By the end of that century, the cost of patent litigation for public companies in most industries outweighed the profits earned from their patents by around 4 to 1.”  -Article

Bogus claims and dubious lawsuits

**by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Google Source

Patents and Innovations

“The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation. Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything; others are motivated by a desire to block competing products or profit from the success of a rival’s new technology. The patent system should reward those who create the most useful innovations for society, not those who stake bogus claims or file dubious lawsuits. It’s for these reasons that Google has long argued in favor of real patent reform, which we believe will benefit users and the U.S. economy as a whole.

But as things stand today, one of a company’s best defenses against this kind of litigation is (ironically) to have a formidable patent portfolio, as this helps maintain your freedom to develop new products and services. Google is a relatively young company, and although we have a growing number of patents, many of our competitors have larger portfolios given their longer histories.

So after a lot of thought, we’ve decided to bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio in the company’s bankruptcy auction. Today, Nortel selected our bid as the “stalking-horse bid,” which is the starting point against which others will bid prior to the auction. If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community—which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome—continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it’s the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners.”  – Source

Unpaid jobs: The new normal? Legal?

**By Katherine Reynolds Lewis Article

“With nearly 14 million unemployed workers in America, many have gotten so desperate that they’re willing to work for free. … “People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they’re going to outperform, they’re going to try to please, they’re going to be creative,” says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. “From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it’s huge. Especially if you’re a small business.” …

Cassie Johnson, a 27-year old in San Marcos, Calif., lost her job as an enrollment adviser for an online university in 2009 and was receiving unemployment benefits for a year before finding an assistant manager position at a Starbucks (SBUX) that’s so far from her home she spends most of her pay on gas. Since starting a public relations internship in February, she feels a renewed sense of purpose.

“I’m learning a lot and I feel really good about it. I’m happy. I feel relevant. I’m not making any money, so it’s tough, but I feel it’s setting me up for a career,” Johnson says. “I only have $1.50 left in my checking account right now ….”  …

Unfortunately for many employers hoping to use unpaid labor to advance their business goals, there are strict federal and state rules that workers must be paid the minimum wage and paid for overtime, and must abide by other provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act, which applies to about 135 million people working for 7.3 million employers. The FLSA doesn’t apply to companies with less than $500,000 in annual revenue unless they engage in interstate commerce — which can be as little as accepting credit cards or placing phone calls to another state. – Article

 

Legal concerns

** by Stefan Lindegaard Article

Legal Aspects of Open Innovation

“A P&G Perspective for Small Companies

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently asked Chris Thoen, Managing Director of the Global Open Innovation office at P&G this question.

“Small companies often have limited legal resources. What can they do to get better deals and protect their intellectual property?”

…

Here is the reply from Chris:

This is an area of critical importance — to both parties involved. Unless everyone is comfortable with and clearly understands the goals, parameters and expectations of a project and of both parties, the relationship will never grow into the deep and trusted collaboration needed to deliver meaningful, maximum results.

Often, small companies do not have the same access to deep and experienced legal teams of their larger partners. Because of this, and the significant cost associated with hiring outside counsel, they will let the larger company take the lead, which usually means the first step is drafting up a full contract. The result can be a very lengthy full-fledged document complete with legal jargon and sentences that run over three pages that no one really understands. …

While a full contract will be needed eventually, it’s not a good way to start working together. What we’ve seen work exceptionally well is for the companies to begin by creating a simple, straightforward one-to-two page letter of understanding that outlines in simple language everyone can understand the overall working principles for the partnership.” – Article

Are You a Marketing Criminal?

California’s Supreme Court has ruled that taking a customer’s Zip code is illegal, prompting an onslaught of civil lawsuits against major retailers.

““What’s your Zip?” This seemingly harmless question, asked by hundreds of retailers, has now been deemed illegal in the California Supreme Court, reversing two lower court decisions. …

Using her Zip code, Williams Sonoma was then able to identify Pineda for marketing purposes, which, the court says, broke privacy laws. According to court papers, Williams Sonoma “used customized computer software to perform reverse searches from databases that contain millions of names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and street addresses, and that are indexed in a manner resembling a reverse telephone book. The software matched plaintiff’s name and Zip code with plaintiff’s previously undisclosed address, giving defendant the information, which it now maintains in its own database. Defendant uses its database to market products to customers and may also sell the information it has compiled to other businesses.” – Article

 

 

Honest Lawyer

“An investment counselor went out on her own. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in, and pretty soon she realized she needed an in-house counsel, so she began interviewing young lawyers. “As I’m sure you can understand,” she started off with one of the first applicants, “in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question.” She leaned forward. “Mr. Peterson, are you an *honest* lawyer?”

“Honest?” replied the job prospect. “Let me tell you something about honesty. Why, I’m so honest that my father lent me fifteen thousand dollars for my education and I paid back every penny the minute I tried my very first case.” “Impressive….. And what sort of case was that?”

The lawyer squirmed in his seat and admitted, “He sued me for the money.”"

Source

10 Legal myths you need to know

“Since legalese can be intimidating, here’s a plain-English list of legal myths you should know about because they may save your butt somewhere along the line. Keep in mind that state laws may vary.

1. Incorporating or forming an LLC will protect your personal assets. While it does provide some limited protection, from a practical standpoint, it really doesn’t. If you do something illegal that results in considerable damages, you can definitely expect the damaged party to go after your personal assets and potentially win.
2. Attorney-client privilege is absolute. There are all kinds of requirements for the privilege to apply, exceptions to the rule, situations where the privilege is at some point extinguished, and cases where courts have ruled to pierce the privilege.
3. CEOs and CFOs are not civilly or criminally liable for misleading or untrue statements in SEC documents. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act changed all that. Not only are they civilly liable, but they can and have been criminally prosecuted for knowingly providing false information to investors. How about that?
4. Bloggers and commentors are protected by the first amendment against libel claims. ….

7.  Patents and NDAs will keep others from stealing your ideas. ….”

- Article

It’s like stabbing Gandhi

Source

Three critical legal lessons for startups

“The dizzying pace of a startup company frequently leads to legal mistakes that could shake a budding company to its core. Entrepreneurs, take note: Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Startup or emerging growth companies have to act decisively, efficiently and quickly. But the frenetic pace and other challenges these companies face often lead to serious legal mistakes. All too often, these companies fail to distinguish and understand the differences between an agreement that is legally enforceable and one that is not; keep inadequate documentation of the legal rights and responsibilities among joint venture partners; and fail to identify and protect the company’s trade secrets.

What makes an agreement enforceable? … There are three basic types of written agreements, depending on the language of the agreement:  agreements to agree, letters of intent, and a fully defined, binding agreement. …

Document your joint venture agreements … If you go ahead and form a relationship without any further documentation, you’re asking for trouble. … the dismissed party finds itself with oral understandings about rights to use technology or to receive equity or payment, but no documentation. …

Protect your trade secrets … Employees should sign an employment agreement mandating that company secrets be used only for company business. The same language protecting trade secrets should also be included in joint venture agreements with other companies and third parties. Next, the company needs to take steps to internally identify its trade secrets.”

- Article

An entrepreneur should recognize the differences b

Judgments can last for 22 years

“Say you’ve made 2011 the year you’re going to start a business. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to make art, donuts, metal parts or software – you still need to create a business form. You may have heard of LLC, S Corp, Sole Proprietorship or Partnerships. You may also be in a rush to get started running your company. Hold on a moment, read this, and save yourself some problems in the future. …

If you were to start a business {without incorporating} and have a problem, creditors can secure judgments against you and your assets personally. You have to worry about asset protection. Those judgments can last for 22 years. Don’t think you can just avoid the problem if you make a mistake.”

I recently heard the story of a partnership where one of the partners told the others he had paid taxes on behalf of the business, when he actually pocketed the money. Other partners had debts to pay personally as well as issues with government agencies like the IRS for 7 years afterwards. This isn’t something to take lightly.” - Article

 

Should U.S. states be able to declare bankruptcy?

“With state governments facing massive, recession-stoked budget shortfalls, lawmakers in Washington are debating whether states, like cities, should be given a legal right to file for bankruptcy protection. Opponents of the plan say it would allow states to cut benefits for retirees living on on state pensions, and hurt investors who own state government bonds. But proponents say giving states “fair, orderly, predictable, and lawful” new options to overcome their financial problems might be the only way to avoid costly federal bailouts. Is this an idea whose time has come, or will it only deepen the nation’s financial pain?” – Article

No longer a beautiful screen, but the life and the blood

““We want to ask you whether or not you should be responsible for the supplier companies you have chosen? When you look down at the Apple phone you are using in your hand and you swipe it with your finger is it possible that you can feel as if it is no longer a beautiful screen to show off, but the life and the blood of us employees and victims?”

— From a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs from workers who were hospitalized after inhaling a chemical used to clean touch screens at an electronics factory in China, according to the Guardian. A new report by Chinese environmental groups says Apple was ranked among the most secretive and least responsive companies about its supply chain in China. Apple wouldn’t comment on the report, the Associated Press said. Hewlett-Packard was ranked as among the most responsive to questions about possible environmental violations. The report looked at 29 IT companies’ transparency and responsiveness to environmental concerns at their suppliers.” - Source

We don’t like ‘Buy American’ provisions

GE CEO says equal access in China crucial

“GE this week signed deals worth some $2 billion to supply electric turbines, railroad locomotives and aircraft components to Chinese companies. It also agreed to work with Chinese companies on gas and coal-powered turbines in China, on high-speed rail in the United States and formed a joint-venture company with China’s AVIC to develop electronics for a new single-aisle commercial jetliner being developed by a Chinese state-owned company. …

Immelt’s support of free trade extends to allowing the U.S. government to buy foreign-made goods … “We don’t like ‘Buy American’ provisions,” Immelt said. “We believe in totality of free trade. We think if GE is good enough to compete in China, we should win.” He said there should be mutual respect for investment.”" – Article

G.E. shares jet technology with China

“A prototype of the C919 jet that China’s state-owned aircraft maker hopes to begin delivering in 2016. G.E. has been chosen to supply the engines. … As China strives for leadership in the world’s most advanced industries, it sees commercial jetliners — planes that may someday challenge the best from Boeing and Airbus — as a top prize.  And no Western company has been more aggressive in helping China pursue that dream than one of the aviation industry’s biggest suppliers of jet engines and airplane technology, General Electric. … G.E., in the partnership with a state-owned Chinese company, will be sharing its most sophisticated airplane electronics, including some of the same technology used in Boeing’s new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner. …

doing business in China often requires Western multinationals like G.E. to share technology and trade secrets that might eventually enable Chinese companies to beat them at their own game — by making the same products cheaper, if not better. The other risk is that Western technologies could help China play catch-up in military aviation — a concern underscored last week when the Chinese military demonstrated a prototype of its version of the Pentagon’s stealth fighter, even though the plane could be a decade away from production.” – Article

Negotiations Chinese Style

“Today, effective strategies for leaping into China’s operating environment or for taking existing ventures to the next level include stepping off the beaten path. To become or remain competitive in China, corporations may have to enter second- or third-tier cities, build relationships with regional and niche players, or cultivate deals in China’s interior provinces. These strategic paths will take companies beyond the cosmopolitan comforts of Beijing and Shanghai to regions and cities where business dealings frequently exude more traditional Chinese characteristics and follow local rhythms. …

From a Chinese perspective, negotiation exists primarily as a mechanism for building trust so that two parties can work together for the benefit of both. Trust is built through dialogue that lets each party judge or evaluate the partner and the partner’s capabilities and assess each other’s relative status. The negotiation process also enables parties to reach an understanding on a specific issue, condition, or transaction, in a way that lets each side feel that “a good deal” was brokered. But the concept of negotiation hinges on creating a framework for long-term cooperation and problem-solving much more than on drafting a one-time agreement.” – Download paper (32 page pdf)

A citizen would be laughed to scorn

“Once again another policy recommendation that would free the banks and their mortgage foreclosure lackeys for any responsibility for their acts. It never stops. It never will. A citizen would be found in contempt and thrown in jail for what they have done. A citizen would have been tried in court for selling property they did not own and convicted of fraud. And if a citizen went to court and said we don’t need any legal documents from the court house, we have a computer system, they would be laughed to scorn.” – Article

20 years in prison

“Walter Shimoon was one of a select few who get a peek behind the veil Apple Inc. cinches tightly around its products. His alleged attempt to profit illegally from that privilege caught up with Shimoon last week, when the former manager at Apple supplier Flextronics International Ltd. was among three people arrested on a charge of supplying inside information to investors. … Shimoon, who made his first post-arrest court appearance in San Diego on Friday, lost a bid for bail. … “A corrupt network of insiders at some of the world’s leading technology companies served as so-called consultants who sold out their employers by stealing and then peddling their valuable inside information,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Bharara said in a Dec. 16 statement. If convicted of the wire fraud charge, the defendants face as long as 20 years in prison” – Read article