The Bottom Line In the absence of comprehensive federal privacy legislation, state law makers throughout the nation are enacting privacy laws, and Delaware is the latest to join the race. Following California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Connecticut, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Montana, Texas, Continue Reading
For Compete’s Sake! Delaware Court Declines to Enforce Sale-of-Business Restrictive Covenants
The Bottom Line “Courts disfavor restrictive covenants.” This statement has become axiomatic in employment law, and it has never been truer. In the past several years, judges in various jurisdictions have cast an increasingly critical eye on agreements that purport to restrict employees’ Continue Reading
Ballots Continue to Come in for Legalized Sports Betting
The Bottom Line While more than $1 billion was wagered internationally on the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a different kind of betting was on the minds of voters in Maryland, South Dakota and Louisiana, who passed ballot measures to legalize sports betting in their states. Joining a Continue Reading
Supreme Court Seeks to Curb the Worst Abuses of the Patent System
5th Edition: Trends in Marketing Communications Law Congress, commentators and a wide variety of industry leaders have long noted that the patent system was broken. Besieged by a tide of weak patents and baseless patent troll litigations, these stakeholders argued that the current patent climate Continue Reading
All Bets Are Off (or On): SCOTUS Strikes Down Federal Ban on Sports Betting
The Bottom Line The Supreme Court held 6-3 that federal law prohibiting states from enacting sports betting schemes was an unconstitutional "commandeering" of state law issues by the federal government. In striking down the prohibition, the Court paved the way for states to decide for themselves Continue Reading
Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Goes Into Effect on April 1, 2018
The Bottom Line With the MPWFA's April 1, 2018 effective date quickly approaching, Massachusetts employers should review and revise their handbook policies, onboarding notices and HR practices to ensure that they comply with the law’s notice obligations and requirements to provide reasonable Continue Reading
The Days of Patent Plaintiff Forum Shopping May be Over
The Bottom Line The Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland establishes that just having sold goods in the judicial district is now insufficient on its own to establish jurisdiction. Patent holders bringing suit must do so in either the judicial district where the defendant resides, or Continue Reading
Patent Troll Cases Unlikely To Drop Significantly
4th Edition: Trends in Marketing Communications Law The statistics are striking. "Patent trolls" (companies that do not create products or services based on their patents, but instead use patents to extort license fees) are continuing to file large numbers of patent infringement lawsuits, now Continue Reading