Category Archives: Articles
Employment Law Update – How up to date are you?
By Daniel Richardson Is your employee handbook up to date? An up to date employee handbook is important because it outlines for the employee the employer’s policies and procedures as well as establishing the expected standards. Using an employee handbook from the outset of the employment relationship to establish expected standards can be invaluable […]
Game of — Pawns?
The FBI tells the story of Glenn Shriver, a former college student from Michigan who learned Mandarin and lived in China in 2004. He made some friends who encouraged him to find a job with the US government. He received some $70,000 merely to apply for such a job, but by the time the FBI arrested him, he realized that his friends were actually intelligence agents wanting to place a mole inside US agencies.
National agencies are not the only targets. US companies are also subject to foreign espionage. Just last month, the Justice Department announced indictments of five members of China’s military for stealing US companies’ trade secrets.
DESIGN PATENTS — The IP Solution for Many Small Businesses
By: Sharon Adams The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently commemorated the issuance of the 700,000th design patent for a “Hand-Held Learning Apparatus” currently assigned to the Emeryville, California-based LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. A design patent often is an excellent intellectual property solution for many small businesses, especially businesses selling a product. If the […]
Phishing Scam Alert
Our friends at Boyer & Conniff shared this warning about IRS scams: Important reminder The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers to request personal or financial information by email, texting, or any social media. The IRS has been alerted to a new email phishing scam. The emails appear to be from the IRS and include a […]
Trade Secrets Done Right
A recent San Mateo County case, Altavion v. Konica Minolta Systems Laboratory, Inc. , shows how a plaintiff can identify trade secrets with reasonable particularity on the way to winning a $4.8 million trade secret misappropriation case.
Where Exceptional Becomes Normal
by: Andrew K Jacobson Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon is famous as the place “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” Exceptional gets defined down when it applies to everyone. Last month, the US Supreme Court has defined down the term exceptional regarding patent […]
Copyright Trolls? Or an Innovative Business Model by Getty Images?
By Sharon Adams Certain large companies, including Getty Images, routinely send out demand letters claiming copyright infringement. However, the actual validity of alleged infringement is rarely, if ever, tested in court. Getty Images seems to have perfected the “price point” for extracting money based on weak claims of copyright infringement. Getty Images is a private […]
Scam Alert — Court “Notice of Appearance”
by Andrew Jacobson If you receive a “court notice” via email, don’t open it — it is a scam designed to add to your computer malware designed to get you to give over control of your computer to somebody else. We started receiving these a few weeks ago, but it may only just have started getting […]
Star-Struck, or Struck Dumb?
by Andrew Jacobson Comedian Nathan Fielder has been revealed as the brains behind the “Dumb Starbucks” shop that popped up without fanfare (or a health permit) on a Friday afternoon. It disappeared the next Monday. While the joke seemed to be on the people who waited in line for three hours for bad coffee and Vons-bought […]
Obama’s One Sentence on Patent Reform –
By Sharon Adams After Passing the Most Sweeping Patent Law Reform in Decades, President Obama’s State Of the Union speech briefly mentioned patent law. “And let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly and needless litigation.” This single sentence appeared to be dropped into the middle […]
