Scenario:A large company is defending itself in a breach of contract lawsuit. In order to prepare its defense, the company requests documents from the plaintiff that include electronically stored information (ESI). The company believes that plaintiff possesses certain emails and drafts of the contract that may refute plaintiff’s interpretation of the contract.
Scenario: A large, publicly traded manufacturing company is sued by a class of shareholders claiming various securities law violations as well as a failure to disclose the declining sales of one of the company’s manufactured items. The plaintiff class issues a subpoena for documents to a key supplier of the manufactured item at issue.
On September 11, 2009, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion of importance in the area of patent damages in Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc. (consolidation of appeals 2008-1485, -1487, and -1495). At issue on appeal was liability by Microsoft for the alleged infringement of a patent now owned by Lucent, and the award of damages to Lucent.
Since its 2003 decision in Medinol v. Neuro Vasx, Inc., 67 U.S.P.Q.2d 1205 (T.T.A.B. 2003), the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the Board”) has repeatedly canceled registrations that were procured or maintained based on material misrepresentations that a registrant “should have known” to be false. Capitalizing on its first opportunity to weigh in on the growing Medinol body of law, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently rejected the Board’s “should have known” standard.
Scenario: A series of privileged communications between in-house counsel and the board of directors was unintentionally produced to the opposing side during the pre-deposition discovery period in a federal action. During the deposition of one of the board members, the opposing side submits the set of privileged documents as an exhibit. There is no agreement or court order on file in the case dealing with the inadvertent production of privileged documents.
28 August 2009 - Leading international law firm Mayer Brown successfully acted for Mölnlycke Health Care in a claim against Wake Forest University in the High Court to invalidate one of their key patents relating to Kinetic Concepts, Inc.'s (KCI) enormously successful V.A.C. system, which is used for the vacuum-assisted closure of wounds.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s en banc opinion in Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. v. St. Jude Medical, Inc., Nos. 2007-1296, -1347 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 19, 2009), clarifies that 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) does not apply to method claims of patents. Section 271(f) states as follows:
6 August 2009 - Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced today that Duane-David Hough has joined the firm’s Intellectual Property practice as a partner in the New York office. He comes to Mayer Brown from Fish & Richardson and is the fourth partner added to the IP practice in New York and Washington since June.
Scenario: A whistleblower alerts authorities that brokers in a large brokerage firm may have violated a number of regulations regarding communications. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commences an investigation regarding whether one broker “tweeted” about a pending hostile takeover on his Twitter account and whether another broker received insider information about the takeover on his “wall” after a client “blogged” about it on Facebook.
22 July 2009 - Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced today that Gary M. Hnath has joined the firm as a partner in its Intellectual Property Group in Washington, DC. He will also work extensively with the firm’s Government & Global Trade Group.
In a ruling that could potentially save clients millions of dollars in production and preservation costs, Judge Edward F. Harrington of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has denied plaintiffs’ motion in Dahl, et al. v. Bain Capital Partners, LLC, et al., requesting the production of all metadata associated with the emails and word documents produced by the defendants in the case.
On June 29, 2009, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new California law regarding electronic discovery that will affect most litigants in state court. A copy of the Electronic Discovery Act (the “Act”) is available at State of California’s Legislative Counsel’s website.
The antitrust division of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, “BGH”) addressed the admissibility of the so-called compulsory license defense under antitrust law in patent infringement proceedings in a judgment dated 6 May 2009.
A company is sued by a class of investors. The investors issue a discovery request for a large number of data files that are only tangentially related to their claim.
June 19, 2009 – Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced that its practices are ranked in 21 categories in the 2009 edition of Legal 500: Europe, Middle East & Africa.
June 15, 2009 - Mayer Brown LLP, a leading global law firm, today announced that Dennis Mondolino, Lisa Ferri, and Brian Nolan have joined the firm’s Intellectual Property practice in the New York office. Both Mr. Mondolino and Ms. Ferri join the firm as partners and Mr. Nolan as a counsel. All come to Mayer Brown from McDermott, Will & Emery and have practiced together for many years.
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