Posts on ‘December 2nd, 2008’

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed Monday that Qualcomm should be punished for what has in other cases been called a “patent ambush” — not disclosing patents to a standards-setting body and then suing adopters of the standard. In this case, Qualcomm’s target was Broadcom. Patent and antitrust law observers called the opinion one of only a few in the area of standards-setting organizations and said it helps clarify legal behavior in that murky area.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a recent case of first
impression, considered whether a securities fraud complaint brought by
foreign plaintiffs against foreign issuers based on foreign stock
purchases — a set of circumstances sometimes dubbed a “foreign-cubed
securities case” — could be heard by a U.S. federal court. The answer
provided by the 2nd Circuit: under the right circumstances, yes.
Chadbourne & Parke’s Douglas R. Jensen analyzes the ruling.

As technologies mature, costs often go down — making gadgets one thing that get better even as they get cheaper. That means you can give great gifts without spending big piles of cash. Alan Cohen picks this season’s best bang-for-the-buck presents to put on your holiday shopping list.

Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, a California law firm with a sizable corporate and securities practice, has cut five to seven attorneys and up to 15 staff members in recent weeks, according to sources familiar with the situation. Several sources say that the firm recently conducted two rounds of job cuts. Most of those affected were let go in November.

Two law firms defending an attorney accused of sexual harassment cannot withdraw as his counsel days before trial, a Manhattan judge has ruled. Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young is lead counsel and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler local counsel for Oppenheimer & Co. and its former GC, Eric J. Shames, in an employment discrimination dispute brought by a paralegal. The judge noted that Shames had raised “legitimate concerns” that allowing both firms’ withdrawal would hamper his ability to defend himself.

After years of motion practice and a five-week trial, a federal jury in San Francisco took roughly two days to exonerate Chevron Corp. for a decade-old bloody debacle in Nigeria. Villagers-turned-plaintiffs came away completely empty-handed Monday as the seven-man, two-woman jury denied all of their claims, including those for torture and wrongful death. The case was one of the first brought in an American court under the Alien Tort Claims Act.

The volatile stock market and struggling economy have intersected at various points that have significantly affected attorneys in private practice and corporations. Corporate law departments are not immune from the headcount reductions that have openly and quietly affected law firms. In-house lawyers should be prepared, says consultant Frank Michael D’Amore, who provides suggestions that should offer protection and, if calamity should strike, better prepare you for the future.

A 2007 ruling by New York state’s high court has turned the tables in an 11-year legal battle waged by the Cuban maker of the famed Cohiba cigar to block a U.S. company from using the name “Cohiba” for cigars it sells in the United States, a New York federal judge has ruled. The lead lawyer for the Cuban company said that he will move for a disgorgement of profits by U.S.-based General Cigar Co., which he says has been selling “Cohiba” cigars in the United States since 1997.

After the conviction last week of the five individual defendants in the Holy Land Foundation case on charges they engaged in a conspiracy to help funnel at least $12.4 million to Hamas through a Texas-based Muslim charity, the defendants’ lawyers say they believe they have good issues on which to appeal, including questions surrounding the government’s unprecedented use of an anonymous expert witness and the allegedly prejudicial introduction of evidence depicting violence.