Monthly Minute | Design Patents
Under the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) modernization efforts, the time between paying the issue fee and issuance of the patent is being reduced. Faster patent issuance gives patent applicants less time...more
ComplexDiscovery Editor’s Note: The March 2025 Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filings dropped to 89 transactions, marking the lowest monthly total since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in April and May 2020. This...more
On 19 January 2025 the USPTO enacted a new Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) size fee. A new IDS size fee, codified under 37 C.F.R. 1.17(v), is accrued for any pending application when the number of cumulative references...more
The advice to practitioners faced with marginally relevant prior art has long been "when in doubt, cite it." There was a small cost for the applicant (or practitioner) to cite such art by filing an information disclosure...more
Governor Newsom signs amended law, abandoning prior bid to provide additional time for implementation. Despite efforts by California Governor Gavin Newsom to provide more time for businesses to comply with the new...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On January 22, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the 2024 threshold for applying the size-of-parties test of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act will increase from $111.4 million to...more
On June 30, 2023, the Indiana Department of Financial Institutions published Advisory Letter 2023-01, addressing the permissibility of e-lien fees not payable to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The publication was...more
President Biden signed into law H.R. 2617, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 on December 29, 2022. This new legislation includes the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022 (MFFMA), which amends the amounts and...more
Tucked into the Consolidated Appropriations Act that President Biden signed in late December was the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022 (Filing Fee Modernization Act). The Filing Fee Modernization Act makes...more
Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) Act (“HSR Act”) fees are changing, and the HSR process is also changing with the inclusion of new filing tiers, one less expensive tier, several much more expensive tiers, and new state-level and...more
New legislation lowers HSR filing fees for most transactions valued less than $500 million but increases the fees for transactions valued at or above $500 million, while introducing a new requirement to disclose subsidies...more
The newly enacted Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act significantly changes filing fees for HSR filings. The changes are expected to take effect in 2023; the exact date is still to be announced....more
On December 29, President Biden signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (CAA-23) — a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that includes notable changes to current antitrust laws and policies. This...more
Congress passes the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022, changing Hart-ScottRodino Act filing fees and adding disclosure requirements for certain foreign subsidies. On December 23, 2022, as part of a broader...more
President Biden signed the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022, bringing notable changes to the merger filing process and state antitrust enforcement. The Act does the following: 1) Dramatically increases merger...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently implemented amendments to most fee-bearing forms and related rules with a stated goal of modernizing filing fee disclosure and enhancing the validation speed and...more
Don’t forget that new SEC rules went into effect on January 31, 2022 to modernize filing fee disclosure and payment methods for securities transactions...more
Key Takeaways - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is amending the content, structure and location of fee-related information in order to expedite the filing process....more
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted amendments that allow for new payment methods for filing fees, including Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments and debit and credit card payments; revise most...more
In This Issue. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to modernize filing fee disclosure and payment methods; the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced an examination of...more
In the News. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted final rules to update and expand the statistical disclosures that bank and savings and loan registrants must provide to investors for the first time in 30...more
On October 24, 2019, the SEC proposed amendments (https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2019/33-10720.pdf) that would modernize filing fee disclosure and payment methods for most SEC forms that require fees to be paid...more
This newsletter provides a snapshot of the principal US and selected international governance and securities law developments during the third quarter of 2018 that may be of interest to Latin American corporations and...more
FINRA, the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States, has released a set of FAQs relating to its review of public securities offerings filed on its Public Offering Filing...more