Category Archives: High Technology Law
Startups and Trademarks
You and your friends have discussed, with increasing enthusiasm, your idea for a new business. Maybe you want to produce an app, or maybe a restaurant pairing different cuisines. You know what you are going to do, and how you are going to do it, but you also know that you will be cash-strapped, with […]
Update Your Privacy Policy NOW
It’s understandable if you don’t think that website privacy policies are not on the top of your newsfeed. Apparently, Google, the world’s most popular website, changed its website’s privacy policy in June 2016, and nobody noticed. However, that anonymity may change soon, because the California Attorney General’s office is now providing a complaint form that […]
Way Ahead of You, Mr. President
A big drag on the health of the economy is labor mobility – or rather, the lack of it. People trapped in jobs that they don’t want to be in do not supply productivity and innovation. Non-competition agreements contribute significantly to that lack of labor mobility. Some employers like them because they suppress threats of […]
New Obligations to Defend Your Trade Secrets
On Wednesday, May 11, 2016, President Obama signed into law the “Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016,” which provides an extraordinarily strong civil seizure provision – and an important notice requirement to employees, contractors and consultants that all employers who even think they have trade secrets should add to their contracts and employee handbooks. This […]
Call of Duty — to Protect the Right of Publicity?
By: Sharon Adams Oct. 23, 2014 The recent case of Noriega v. Activision Blizzard presents the question: Does infamy give rise to the right of publicity? Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian dictator, filed suit against Activision Blizzard, Inc. in July of this year, claiming that Activision’s use of his image […]
Is Bitcoin in Your Wallet?
By: Daniel Richardson Although virtual currencies are not new they have rapidly evolved in recent years and their use is entering the financial mainstream. Bitcoin is the most widely used of the virtual currencies and is accepted by over 10,000 online retailers including Overstock.com and Expedia.com. So, what is Bitcoin? Is it currency, property, a […]
Now for The [Good] News…
by: Andrew K Jacobson The news has been dreary for some time now, and September has not been friendly in the recent past. Under all that gloom, it is easy to forget that there is a lot of good news out there: Lower Crime. Accounting for population growth, violent crime is down 48 percent over the […]
A Skull Full of Mush
by: Andrew K Jacobson The New York Timesrecently featured an article on Oakland’s own Sustainable Economies Law Center, which helps prospective lawyers apprentice with a lawyer for a few years while learning the law. Every law student who suffered “the ramen noodle and Contracts casebook at 12:30 am” existence finds it tempting. My publicly funded law […]
Foiling the Hyenas
The plunge from the easy money of the 2004-2008 era to The Great Recession hurt a lot of people. The easy credit of plastic morphed into a nightmare of bills and the inability to make even minimum payments. People who lost their jobs or were unable to afford finance charges that, in some cases, exceeded 20% annually, were saddled with debt that they couldn’t pay back, and no one game them a break. However, the banks that initially extended the bad debt, at worst case, were folded into healthy banks, and usually sold their bad debt at a deep discount – as low as 1%-2% of the total value – to companies that make their living suing those who can’t pay back their debt. How does someone in tough circumstances fight back against the hyenas?
What Flavor is your NDA?
By Andrew Jacobson Ah, the conundrums of a child’s summer: butterscotch, or strawberry? Mint chocolate chip, or triple fudge? Cone or cup? Businesses have their less-tasty choices, but they are still there: what flavor is your non-disclosure agreement? There are almost as many options for NDAs as there are at your local ice-cream store. […]
