LEGAL
A month dedicated to intellectual property
Regardless of your company's industry or your specific practice within the legal department, understanding intellectual property law is beneficial for all in-house counsel. Is your company relying on the assumption that IP created during the course of employment is owned by the employer? How enforceable is your browsewrap agreement? What is an NPE or a patent troll? The month of December is dedicated to insights on intellectual property, a subject that is constantly evolving with new rulings, complications and challenges. Be sure to check out the Westlaw® Corporate Twitter® feed and the Legal Solutions Corporate Counsel blog for more in-depth articles and information on selected IP topics.
An IP primer: Debunking myths; international aspects; and important resources
For corporate counsel in any industry, some knowledge of intellectual property law could assist in preventing expensive and time-consuming litigation. This brief overview provides a background to just some of the IP issues that confront corporations that do not often work in matters governed by IP law.
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Employer and employee ownership of intellectual property: Not as easy as you think
Companies often hire and invest in employees to develop new products, improve processes, create new technologies and develop new markets. With this investment, an employer generally owns the intellectual property created by its employees in the course of their employment. However, intellectual property that is created by an employee, other than in the course of employment, is owned by the employee. These simple principles present challenges for both parties.
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Successfully navigating the increasingly complex intellectual property rights
As enterprises recognize the growing commercial significance of intellectual property rights, many of them move to assert and enforce those rights more aggressively. In this setting of active intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement, many parties not accustomed to the world of IPR management are forced to be involved in IPR disputes and many of those disputes lead to unintended consequences.
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IP injunctions after ebay: What it means for you
In a decision that has changed patent law as we know it, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the recent eBay v. MercExchange case, held that a district court's decision to grant or deny request for a permanent injunction in a patent case must in the future conform to the same "traditional principles of equity" that guide courts in nonpatent cases. Corporate Counsel Connect spoke with Allan Gabriel of Dykema to understand the full implications of this recent decision.
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CJEU ruling: Embedding copyright-protected content without permission isn't infringement
The Internet has repeatedly presented challenges for intellectual property law, an area completely unprepared for the broad new channels of communication offered to virtually any individual with access to a computer. As the Internet continues to evolve, this tension becomes more complex: Where early disputes revolved around file-sharing and unauthorized downloads of copyrighted material, today's copyright clashes involve issues such as liability for link embedding.
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Fees awarded to non-infringers; enforceability of browsewrap agreements; induced patent infringement
IP Know-How: Are you aware of the recent circuit court decisions that highlight the need for companies to clearly identify their IP assets and retain records of updates and other IP modifications on an ongoing basis. And how enforceable is your browsewrap agreement? Finally, patent owners should be aware of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly narrows the scope of induced patent infringement.
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Keeping up with outside counsel: The ten IP terms every in-house attorney should know
Many in-house attorneys refer their IP matters to outside counsel. Even though you may not be doing the bulk of the work, you still have to be able to explain it to company management and be able to critically review outside counsel's bills. Here are ten-plus IP terms to help make your internal discussions and communications with outside IP counsel both more meaningful and cost-effective.
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