What happens when a senior executive leaves a Massachusetts company, with which he has a non-compete, to go to work for a competitor in California, which forbids most non-competes? This question was front and center when...more
The Copyright Act requires that an infringement action be brought, if at all, within three years of the accrual of the claim. This requirement often limits the period for which damages can be recovered. As a recent Supreme...more
On March 1, 2024, a federal district court ruled in National Small Business United v. Yellen that the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), about which we wrote earlier, is unconstitutional. The U.S. Treasury Department has...more
On March 20, 2024 the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a privacy-related bill, H.R. 7520 (the “Data Broker Bill).” This comes on the heels of another privacy-related bill approved by the House on March 13,...more
ChatGPT and similar generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools rely on large language models (LLMs). LLMs are fed massive amounts of content, such as text, music, photographs and film, which they analyze to discover...more
2/28/2024
/ Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc v Goldsmith ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Office ,
Copyright Ownership ,
Data Mining ,
Digital Assets ,
Fair Use ,
Licensing Rules ,
Machine Learning ,
New York Times ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Statutory Damages ,
Training
On December 27, 2023, the New York Times filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York against Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging massive copyright infringement. This promises to be the most high-stakes intellectual...more
A recent EU court decision demonstrates a subtle difference between EU and US privacy laws, and may ultimately influence how US laws are interpreted. The decision of the EU General Court emanated from a court proceeding in...more
Why might a 255 foot yacht named “Tango” anchored in Mallorca make your life more complicated? Because its owner, Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, had been sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for “contributing to the situation...more
ChatGPT has been making headlines lately. The lawyer who obtained fake judicial holdings from ChatGTP and then cited them in his brief to the court is the most recent example...more
Phishing schemes encompass fraudulent emails, text messages, phone calls, or web sites designed to manipulate people into downloading malware, sharing sensitive information, or otherwise exposing themselves or their...more
A recent Federal Circuit opinion casts fresh light on two aspects of patent strategy: the experimental use exception to the on-sale bar to patent validity; and the role of a non-infringement legal opinion in defeating an...more
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) has issued two general licenses relevant to intellectual property matters authorizing transactions that would otherwise be prohibited by the sanctions...more
Sunstein is delighted to present a “Fireside Chat” with Pure Lithium moderated by Thomas C. Carey and Dr. Bill Braunlin.
Learn how Pure Lithium Founder & CEO Emilie Bodoin and Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Donald...more
The Russian war on Ukraine has resulted in a series of US sanctions and Russian countermeasures that have disrupted the coordination of patent and trademark rights between the United States and Russia. ...more
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in numerous sanctions against Russia, including tightened export controls. One of these measures – the foreign direct product (FDP) rule - represents an ambitious attempt by the...more
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prohibits transfers of personal information about Europeans to destinations outside of the EU unless one of several tests is satisfied. As pertains to transfers...more
In June, the European Commission published the final version of a new set of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) that can be used to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”). These clauses are of...more
8/4/2021
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
EU ,
EU-US Privacy Shield ,
European Commission ,
European Court of Justice (ECJ) ,
European Economic Area (EEA) ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
International Data Transfers ,
Personal Data ,
Standard Contractual Clauses
In 1890, Louis Brandeis wrote a seminal law review article on privacy, defining it as “the right to be left alone.” In 1991, Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to reinforce that right. This month,...more
5/10/2021
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Do Not Call List ,
Facebook ,
Facebook Inc v Duguid ,
FCC ,
Random or Sequential Number Generator ,
Robocalling ,
SCOTUS ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on October 7 in Google v. Oracle, which involves a Federal Circuit decision that we have discussed here. The primary question is whether the code of application programming interfaces...more
10/14/2020
/ Certiorari ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Fair Use ,
Google LLC v Oracle America Inc ,
Java ,
Oral Argument ,
Popular ,
SCOTUS ,
Software ,
Source Code
On September 10, the antitrust division of US Department of Justice (DOJ) took the unusual step of revising a 2015 business review letter it had sent to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)....more
10/9/2020
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Business Review Letters ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
FRAND ,
IEEE ,
Injunctive Relief ,
IP License ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patents ,
SSO ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Standard Setting Organizations
Companies seeking to license patents from state universities face a special risk--sovereign immunity. The 11th Amendment to the US Constitution deprives federal courts of jurisdiction to hear complaints brought by a citizen...more
Qualcomm has for years dominated the market for cellphone chips. Its patented technologies have been included in many cellphone standards on the condition, common among standards setting organizations (SSOs), that Qualcomm...more
9/3/2020
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Apple ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Contract Disputes ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FRAND ,
IP License ,
Microchip Technology ,
Monopolization ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Royalties ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Qualcomm ,
Sherman Act ,
Standard Essential Patents
The Covid-19 pandemic has spawned a number of novel technologies aimed at suppressing the spread of the coronavirus. In China, for example, the most popular messaging and payment apps contain technology that requires a user...more
6/16/2020
/ Best Practices ,
Consent ,
Contact Tracing ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Employee Privacy Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Health and Safety ,
Mobile Apps ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Policy ,
Sick Employees ,
Workplace Safety
The Patent Act allows anyone to try to initiate an inter partes review (IPR), which is a proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenging one or more claims of a patent. Any such challenge may be based...more
4/21/2020
/ Appeals ,
Denial of Institution ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Patent Act ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Printed Publications ,
Prior Art ,
Section 325(d)
The federal government’s ability to compel manufacture of supplies under the Defense Production Act has lately been in the news. Indeed, President Trump has issued an Executive Order authorizing the Secretary of Health and...more