This Year

Posted on: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:33:40 +0000

Recently Chief Judge Rader of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made a strong defense of the patent system in a chat billed as a fireside chat at the AUTM annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. In his opening salvo into the issue of patent litigation abuse, the Chief explained: Interestingly, [...]More

Posted on: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:36:17 +0000

Over the past week or so, there have been a series of articles on IPWatchdog.com that have taken a look at the rise of patent litigation beginning in about 2009, but really with an alarming growth in the number of patent infringement lawsuits brought in 2012. The first article in what is now a trilogy (and likely [...]More

Posted on: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:49:08 +0000

It sounds like we are heading back to the days, not so long ago, where the USPTO was underfunded and overworked. Teresa Rea, the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, recently sent an e-mail to all USPTO employees explaining that the USPTO [...]More

Posted on: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:38:20 +0000

Whenever I speak at law schools, I inevitably get asked questions about what students should be doing to (1) set themselves up in a position to be hired; and (2) ultimately land a job.  With that in mind, I thought it might make sense to cover some steps that can be taken to help find [...]More

Posted on: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:59:00 +0000

Essentially, means-plus-function claiming allows the drafter to claim the invention based on functionality rather than the more traditional (and preferred) claim technique that describes structure(s) within the body of the claim itself. A claim term is functional when it recites a feature by what it does rather than by what it is. There is nothing intrinsically [...]More

Posted on: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:28:39 +0000

On March 28, 2013, Covidien (NYSE: COV), a leading global provider of healthcare products, won a patent infringement lawsuit against Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, relating to Ethicon’s Harmonic line of ultrasonic surgical products. Before proceeding, to clear up any possible confusion for those who look to the Memorandum of Decision issued [...]More

Posted on: Mon, 06 May 2013 19:44:14 +0000

On Friday, April 26, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a district court decision in a patent dispute between Biosig Instruments, Inc. (“Biosig”) and Nautilus, Inc. (“Nautilus”), sending the case back to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. The dispute between the [...]More

Posted on: Wed, 08 May 2013 16:48:39 +0000

On March 25, 2013, I spoke on the record with Eric Gould Bear (left) about software innovations, software patents and the trials and tribulations of litigating software patents long after they were first written. Bear is an inventor on over 100 patents and patent applications in the software space. He has spent over 25 years [...]More

Posted on: Mon, 13 May 2013 16:38:55 +0000

In what can only fairly be characterized as a patent tragedy, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit now has no official position on the patentability of system claims that objectively recite volumes of tangible structures that clearly satisfy the machine-or-transformation test. Less than 5 years after giving the industry the rigid [...]More

Posted on: Fri, 17 May 2013 12:48:24 +0000

On Monday, May 13, 2013, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that a farmer who buys Monsanto’s patented seeds cannot then propagate new seeds for future use without infringing the underlying patent. The opening paragraph in the Court’s decision, which was delivered by Justice Kagan, succinctly captures the essence of the [...]More

Posted on: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:00:09 +0000

We are pleased to share the most recent edition of the Simpson Thacher Securities Law Alert, edited by litigation Partners Jonathan Youngwood, Peter Kazanoff, and Paul Gluckow. The following is a summary of the February 2013 edition of the Alert:More

Posted on: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:00:29 +0000

New CFTC swap clearing rules will force non-financial entities to stop uncleared trading of certain interest-rate swaps (IRS) and index credit default swaps (index CDS) starting on September 9, 2013, unless such entities qualify for and claim the “commercial end-user exception” included in those rules. According to this memo I just received from Skadden's Brian Breheny, corporations will need to take certain steps before the September deadline if ...More

Posted on: Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:00:52 +0000

Sullivan & Cromwell Partner and Practice Center Contributor, Frank Aquila, just sent along an article he co-wrote with Partner Sarah Payne for Bloomberg Law. The article presents some issues for legal and investor relations teams to consider as they seek to increasingly use social media to communicate with investors. Here is an excerpt:More

Posted on: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:00:25 +0000

The year 2012 saw vigorous activity in the creation and implementation of increasingly restrictive sanctions, particularly with respect to Iran. Enforcement of the sanctions has been accompanied by at times very significant penalties. The following update from Gibson Dunn reviews sanctions developments in the United States, European Union and the United Kingdom in 2012 in four areas -- legislation, Executive Orders, regulatory developments, and enforcement ...More

Posted on: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:00:24 +0000

Today we continue our bi-weekly installment shining a light on the best of the corporate and securities blogosphere. Highlights include a pro-business SCOTUS opinion, more revolving door drama, Lululemon exposed and more. If there are any corporate or securities blogs you think should be highlighted by our Top 5, please comment on this post and we’ll check them out!More

Posted on: Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:00:52 +0000

Plaintiffs’ attorneys have continued to bring, or threaten, litigation against U.S. companies following the filing of their annual proxy statements. These complaints generally allege disclosure deficiencies in connection with the approval of equity compensation plans and/or the advisory shareholder “say-on-pay” vote and, as with merger-related “strike suits,” seek to enjoin the annual meeting. According to a new memo we just received from Sullivan ...More

Posted on: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:00:32 +0000

The SEC recently issued an important guidance update on social media filings by investment companies which is intended to "clarify the obligations of mutual funds and other investment companies to seek review of materials posted on their social media sites." The guidance from the Division of Investment Management is the first in its “IM Guidance Update” series, which will offer the staff’s views on emerging legal issues. We just received this Investment ...More

Posted on: Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:00:59 +0000

In Kallick v. SandRidge Energy, Inc. the Delaware Court of Chancery preliminarily enjoined the board of SandRidge Energy, Inc. from impeding a consent solicitation by one of the Company’s largest stockholders to replace the incumbent directors. The Court found that the directors likely would be breaching their duty of loyalty if they did not “approve” the insurgent slate in the face of a change of control put provision in the company’s public notes ...More

Posted on: Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:00:49 +0000

We are pleased to share the most recent edition of the Simpson Thacher Securities Law Alert, edited by litigation Partners Jonathan Youngwood, Peter Kazanoff, and Paul Gluckow. The following is a summary of the March 2013 edition of the Alert:More

Posted on: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:00:48 +0000

On April 2nd, the SEC issued a report of investigation that makes clear public companies may use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to announce information in compliance with Regulation FD as long as the companies made investors aware in advance which social media will be used to disseminate the information. Given the increasing frequency with which public companies are using social media to engage with clients, customers, employees, shareholders ...More

Recorded on: Feb. 7, 2013

AMY: It is now my pleasure to turn this briefing over to John Tuttle. JONATHAN TUTTLE: Hello all and welcome and thanks for joining on the call today. What Matt and I are going to talk about really had its most recent origin in some newspaper articles that Matt will discuss later talking about 10b5-1 trading plans and bringing those plans kind of back to the forefront of both the enforcement and the corporate issuer context. I think what we're going ...

Released on: Feb. 7, 2013

Taken from the briefing 10b5-1 Trading Plans and Insider Trading Under the Spotlight: Key Issues Companies and Executives Must Consider recorded January, 2013. A recent front page article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Executives’ Good Luck in Trading Own Stock” reported that, based on the review of thousands of trades by corporate insiders, many executives appear to have done suspiciously well buying and selling their companies’ ...

From the program: School Law Institute (13th Annual)

Released on: Apr. 30, 2013

To effectively represent parents, students, and school districts, practitioners must continue to develop and expand their understanding of the most recent developments in case law, and keep abreast not only of legislative and regulatory changes, but even technological changes as they affect schools and governing laws.In PLI’s 13th Annual School Law Institute, an expert faculty will examine significant new developments in education law and policy, ...

From the program: Consumer Financial Services Institute (18th Annual)

Released on: Apr. 23, 2013

On January 4, 2012, President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since that time, the CFPB has been involved in a whirlwind of regulatory, supervisory and enforcement activities. In addition to the CFPB, state and other federal regulators are pursuing initiatives focused on consumer financial services. This year’s Institute will explore in detail the Bureau’s activities as well ...

• May. 31, 2013