Posts on ‘November 13th, 2009’

The 8th Circuit upheld a ruling by Minneapolis federal Judge David Doty and found that he could continue in his 16-year role overseeing the National Football League’s collective bargaining agreement with the players union. The NFL claimed Doty abused his authority when he overturned an arbitrator’s decision and let Michael Vick keep a $20 million bonus from the Atlanta Falcons. The court did, however, rap Doty on the knuckles for agreeing to be interviewed for two articles about his role overseeing NFL affairs.

Fending off accusations it misappropriated the names of more than 185 indie rockers to promote cigarettes, Rolling Stone magazine on Thursday appeared to have one appellate justice in its corner. However, two votes are needed to win and one judge was absent during oral arguments in the San Francisco court. The third didn’t tip his hand. At issue is whether an article was First Amendment-protected noncommercial speech or whether an accompanying ad converted the story into commercial speech aimed at selling a product.

Baker Hostetler, which was founded in Cleveland almost a century ago, landed in Chicago this week. The firm’s new office opens with four lawyers, including three that it nabbed from Lovells and McDermott Will & Emery. Baker is leasing a floor of office space from Drinker Biddle & Reath that can accommodate 24 lawyers, with an option to expand the space to add 10 more lawyers later. Ultimately, the firm expects to have 100 attorneys in the city, said Steven Kestner, Baker’s national executive partner.

An alleged investment fraud operated by disgraced Florida attorney Scott Rothstein could mount to $1 billion and involve thousands of victims, the FBI said Thursday. In a rare outreach effort, the FBI and Internal Revenue Service issued a public plea asking fleeced investors to come forward. John V. Gillies, the FBI chief in Miami, emphasized the venture was “not a one-man show.” The investigation has brought down the operations of Rothstein’s law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler.

While we eagerly wait to see how the landscape of patent law will shift after the Supreme Court decides Bilski, attorneys David A. Kalow and Milton Springut compare Bilski with a recent Federal Circuit decision to address just what is patentable subject matter.

A historic settlement between rival chip companies Intel and AMD shook the tech world on Thursday. Intel Corp. agreed to pay Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $1.25 billion to settle lawsuits claiming that it unfairly squashed the smaller AMD by bribing computer companies not to use AMD chips. The agreement also says Intel will abide by certain business practices, including not paying companies to stay away from AMD chips. So who came out ahead? One outside observer who specializes in antitrust said it was AMD.

Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be brought to trial in a civilian U.S. courthouse in New York, near the site of the devastating 2001 terror attacks. Prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the long-awaited and politically fraught decision at a news conference Friday. He also said five other Guantanamo detainees will be tried through the military commission process.

Gregory Craig is stepping down as White House Counsel and will be replaced by Perkins Coie partner Robert Bauer, the White House announced Friday morning. The move, effective Jan. 3, comes one month after Craig told The National Law Journal that he had “no plans to leave.” But Craig was under pressure for his support of a one-year deadline to shutter Guantanamo — a deadline that now seems unlikely to be met.