News/Events/Blogs

In this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss a dispute between the original USFL and Fox, over the network’s attempt to revive the football league.

For the third time, CalOSHA has revised its Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) governing workplace safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The revised ETS are due to take effect on May 6, 2022 once they have been reviewed by the Office of Administrative Law and filed with the California Secretary of State.

The recent opportunities for remote work and learning have provided improvements in lifestyle for a number of employees and students. Many of those able to work or study from home have benefited from more flexible schedules, reduction in time and money spent on commuting, reduction in work- and school-related stress, and more family time. But those benefits have come with some new challenges. For example, professors and teachers have confronted the challenge of how to prevent students from cheating on exams.

In this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss an intellectual property dispute between a typeface designer and Banana Republic, over the retailer’s use of a stylized ampersand design.

Over two and a half years ago, this column analyzed a Ninth Circuit case titled HiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, in which the Court agreed with a lower court that had issued a preliminary injunction against LinkedIn from taking certain technical measures to prevent HiQ, a data analytics company, from “scraping” information from publicly available profiles on LinkedIn’s site. The Ninth Circuit concluded then that HiQ was not violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) because its activities were directed at publicly available information and therefore,

In this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss the Supreme Court’s first intellectual property ruling of 2022.

Not everything is patentable. First, only inventions are patentable. Second, only certain inventions are patentable. Four types of inventions are patentable: articles of manufacture, machines, processes, and compositions of matter. 35 U.S.C. §101. These four types of inventions are referred to as patent-eligible subject matter. Some things, referred to as patent-ineligible subject matter, are not patentable: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.

“Let’s leave that to the lawyers.”  It’s a familiar refrain that I hear often as contract negotiations drag on between parties.  After the primary deal points in a contract have been agreed upon, many clients believe that the remaining terms can be easily resolved without their involvement.  Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, as what some clients perceive to be boilerplate or “standard” could become critically important if a dispute arises relating to the transaction.

I have been in healthcare legal practice since the mid-1990s.  During a summer in law school, I worked for the California Legislative Counsel Bureau, which is the agency that serves as legal counsel to the California legislature.  During my stint there, I recall various healthcare licentiates arguing about whether to expand the practice of non-physicians, with physicians generally asserting that such changes would be detrimental to healthcare quality and the other healthcare licentiates arguing that they provide a quality service at a more reasonable price-point. 

In this episode of California Employment News, Lukas Clary and Meagan Bainbridge discuss the erosion of confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements, and what employers can do about it.