The recent, unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano resolved a circuit split on the materiality standard under Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. By affirming the Ninth Circuit, the Court re-established the materiality standard set forth twenty-three years ago in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. Although …
The Warshak decision is a long-overdue federal case extending Fourth Amendment protection to electronic communications stored with third parties. In holding that citizens have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” for stored e-mail messages, the Sixth Circuit decision represents a shift towards a stricter interpretation of the Fourth Amendment as it applies to modern forms of …
The first sale doctrine, simply put, is the principle that after the copyright owner has transferred a copy of the work, the new owner is free to do almost anything with the copy without the copyright owner’s consent. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Costco v. Omega that the …
Entering into a contract containing a carefully crafted arbitration clause provides a level of predictability with respect to the investment and liability associated with patent license and/or research agreements, thereby providing the respective companies a better estimation of the risk factors associated therewith. Specifically, when parties enter into an agreement to arbitrate they have the …
Design patents are an under-utilized tool in the protection of the work of fashion designers. Although the fashion industry annually generates billions of dollars in sales in the United States alone, many designers do not adequately protect their intellectual property. Multiple efforts to create a sui generis 1 statute specifically for fashion designs have stalled …
