As part of the America Invents Act (“AIA”), Congress moved the patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-inventor-to-file system. For patents governed by the new first-to-file system, the Act also eliminated...more
POTUS Issues First Veto. On March 20, 2023, after more than two years in office, President Biden issued his first legislative veto. As expected, President Biden rejected the bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolution that...more
Bankruptcy Resurgent? The economic shutdown, and the ensuing recession, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic have jeopardized the survival of many businesses and, in some cases, of entire industries. Notwithstanding the...more
On May 8, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced a pilot program to provide prioritized patent examination for certain patent applications that claim products or processes subject to an...more
The State of New York has issued multiple Executive Orders and Administrative Orders impacting the operations of state courts during the COVID-19 outbreak. Executive Order 202.8 - As part of his continuing efforts to...more
A basic tenet of bankruptcy law, premised on the legal separateness of a debtor prior to filing for bankruptcy and the estate created upon a bankruptcy filing, is that prepetition debts are generally treated differently than...more
Nabors Offshore Corp. v. Whistler Energy II LLC is the rare bankruptcy case where the outcome was consistent with the realities of operating in the oil patch rather than the artificial constraints of the Bankruptcy Code. The...more
On June 7, 2019, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling on a matter that has been closely monitored by the power industry. The court issued a declaratory judgment that Pacific Gas &...more
Provisional applications tempt stakeholders with the possibility of securing a filing date on an expedited basis and limited budget, but the value of that filing date will depend on its ability to serve as a valid priority...more
During his tenure, former CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney brought significant changes to the Bureau’s structure and operations. As the new CFPB Director, Kathy Kraninger will have the benefit of a full five-year term to...more
Debtors in Chapter 11 proceedings rarely pay unsecured creditors a meaningful dividend on prepetition accounts receivable balances, much less pay them in full. In an era of aggressive lending to place capital in the market,...more
Section 503(b)(9) of the Bankruptcy Code (11 U.S.C. §503(b)(9)) provides a special administrative priority claim for someone that supplies goods to a debtor in the 20 day period before the bankruptcy filing, but is unpaid as...more
Employers who rely heavily on independent contractors or temporary workers should take note: “Gig” economy companies are now a priority of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC recently approved...more
“The news from the telecom industry will remain unrelentingly negative until a cyclical upturn is in sight possibly not until 2003. In the interim the telecommunications sector will be entering a build-buy or be bought phase...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is moving forward with an administrative action against a small medical laboratory that suffered two data security breaches, resulting in its patients’ protected health information falling...more
The question of whether electricity qualifies as a "good" under the Bankruptcy Code's administrative priority provisions has sparked varied rulings from bankruptcy courts. The recent case of In re Southern Montana Electric...more