In a unanimous decision earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in order for an infringement suit defending a method patent to succeed, every step in the method must be infringed by the same party or parties under its direct control. The case, Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., involved a situation […]
Companies that use automatically renewing subscription plans are coming under increasing scrutiny as a growing number of class action lawsuits is filed by consumers who claim they did not explicitly authorize the renewals. These cases are, for the moment at least, popping up primarily in California and Oregon which have particularly stringent laws governing such […]
If your business uses auto-dialing of cell phones as a way of communicating with customers, you may find yourself facing an unexpected new burden after a ruling by the Eleventh Circuit Court. That court, in the case of Breslow v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., determined that when the plaintiff transferred ownership of the phone and […]
Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Duval Patrick has submitted legislation that would make his only the fifth state in the nation to place an outright ban on employee non-compete agreements. The legislation is part of a larger package aimed to address the state’s competitiveness with other states with large-scale technology-based enterprises where non-competes are sometimes seen as […]
The prospects for patent law reform being passed by the current Congress disappeared last week when Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) pulled his bill after several contentious months of no consensus. The Senate’s Judiciary Committee Chairman had been fighting to get the Senate to adopt patent reform in the wake of the House of Representatives’ overwhelming […]