Overall
Key cases
Industries
Intellectual Property
Labor & Employment
Corporate
Practice Areas
Media & Entertainment
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May 23, 2013
Time Warner Accused Of Stiffing Workers On OT
A former Time Warner Cable Inc. call center employee filed a putative class action against the telecommunications giant Tuesday in California court, claiming the company has failed to pay employees proper overtime rates and wages they were owed upon termination.
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May 23, 2013
FTC To Give Leeway On Kids' Privacy Rule, Ohlhausen Says
The Federal Trade Commission won't immediately begin enforcing its newly revised online privacy rule July 1, Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen told Law360 this week in an interview that highlighted her personal preference for tempering privacy enforcement actions with careful research and business education.
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May 23, 2013
Dish Pulls In $9B In Financing Toward Bid For Sprint
Dish Network Corp. has locked down $9 billion in committed financing from five banks to finance its $25.5 billion cash-and-stock bid to buy Sprint Nextel Corp., a person familiar with the matter told Law360 on Thursday.
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May 23, 2013
Judge Leans Toward DOJ In Apple Antitrust Suit
The U.S. Department of Justice has a shot at winning a case alleging Apple Inc. conspired with publishers to fix e-book prices, a federal judge indicated Thursday, providing an early read on her thinking ahead of a much-anticipated trial.
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May 23, 2013
EU Votes To Steer Clear Of Film, TV In US Trade Talks
The European Parliament voted Thursday to begin talks on a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, but called for the negotiations not to address the film and television industries.
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May 23, 2013
Miami Heat Star's Dad Sued In Sports Agency Dispute
A Miami Beach sports agency on Tuesday hit former partner Ronnie Chalmers, the father of Miami Heat point guard Mario Chalmers, with a trade secrets and contract suit in Florida state court claiming he exploited his partnership stake to advance his own career as an agent, at the expense of the agency.
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May 23, 2013
Yahoo Wins Short-Term Stay In Messenger IP Suit
A California federal judge agreed Thursday to temporarily stay Pragmatus AV's case accusing Yahoo Inc.'s Messenger of infringing two communications technology patents in order to give a Delaware court time to rule on Yahoo's motion to transfer a nearly identical case to the Golden State.
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May 23, 2013
Former Stockbroker Seeks Bail In 'Rebecca' Con Case
A former stockbroker accused of defrauding a real estate company and the producers of defunct Broadway musical “Rebecca” sought bail in New York federal court Thursday as negotiations for a potential plea deal continue, saying he has found temporary work and is not a flight risk.
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May 23, 2013
House Dems Float Employee Social Media Privacy Bill
A pair of House Democrats on Wednesday unveiled the latest bill aimed at barring employers from demanding direct access to current and prospective employees’ password-protected accounts on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
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May 23, 2013
Microsoft Wins Xbox Patent Battle At ITC With Motorola
The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled Thursday that Microsoft Corp. didn't infringe a patent owned by Google Inc. subsidiary Motorola Mobility when it manufactured the popular video gaming brand Xbox.
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May 23, 2013
Trustee Says 'Girls Gone Wild' Founder Can't Stop Ch. 11
The trustee overseeing the California "Girls Gone Wild" bankruptcy derided efforts by founder Joe Francis to halt the bankruptcy of a subsidiary involved in the purportedly fraudulent overseas transfer of company trademarks on Thursday, saying his emergency motion was filed an hour and a half too late.
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May 23, 2013
Deals Sizzle, BBQs To Follow For Busy Deal Makers
Deal makers really don't want to spend Memorial Day weekend in the office. A flurry of transactions have made this one of the year's busiest weeks in mergers and acquisitions, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP among those that freed up grilling time.
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May 23, 2013
NYC Planning Board OKs Queens Tennis Stadium Expansion
The U.S. Tennis Association's $500 million plan to expand its tennis center in Queens moved one step closer to reality Wednesday when New York City's Planning Commission voted to approve the controversial proposal.
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May 23, 2013
Superman Heirs Urge 9th Circ. To Reverse DC Comics Win
The heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster did not agree to release their statutory right to reclaim Superman copyrights in a 1992 deal with DC Comics, the heirs told the Ninth Circuit on Thursday in a bid to overturn a victory for the publisher in their long-running copyright fight.
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May 23, 2013
Miss USA Official Wants Sex Tape Interview Suit Shut Down
A Miss USA beauty pageant official urged a California appellate court Thursday to toss a breach of contract suit, arguing that a trial court erroneously greenlighted claims that she broke a secret agreement by talking to TMZ about a beauty queen's sex tape.
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May 23, 2013
Facebook Ordered To Surrender Docs In 'Like' Button IP Row
A Virginia federal judge on Thursday ordered Facebook Inc. to turn over documents related to its 2009 acquisition of FriendFeed, developer of the “Like” button, which is at the center of a lawsuit alleging Facebook infringes two social media patents.
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May 23, 2013
GOP Lawmakers Want Answers From DOJ Over AP Subpoenas
House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Wednesday pressed the Justice Department for answers about its controversial investigation into reporters at The Associated Press, asking whether the department had attempted to limit the scope of its subpoenas or exhausted all other investigative tools before requesting them.
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May 23, 2013
Casino Revenue Talks With NY Tribe Hit Impasse, Cuomo Says
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that casino revenue-sharing negotiations with the Seneca Nation Native American tribe have stalled, leaving the tribe’s territory open to other bidders as the state seeks to legalize table games like poker, roulette and craps.
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May 23, 2013
WWE's Online Store Infringes Data Patents, Suit Says
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., iRobot Corp., Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. and others were hit with suits in Texas federal court Wednesday alleging their online stores infringe two Landmark Technology LLC patents for data processing and computer search systems.
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May 23, 2013
Ex-Penn State Chief Says School's Atty Violated Privilege
The ousted head of Pennsylvania State University wants a state judge to dismiss criminal charges accusing him of helping cover up the conduct of convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, arguing that his indictment was improperly based on testimony from a school lawyer who violated his attorney-client privilege.
Expert Analysis
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When Rights Of Publicity Trump 1st Amendment
An important practice tip that flows from the Third Circuit's opinion in Ryan Hart v. Electronic Arts Inc. is that talismanic invocation of the First Amendment does not resolve the legal problem of balancing that amendment with competing rights such as the right of publicity, says Ronald Katz of Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.
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The Starstruck Medical Causation Trend
In the technical sense, medical causation answers whether an accused substance brought about some alleged disease. But rarely are the central causal allegations in major toxic torts purely courtroom affairs — publicity and politics now drive the litigation, with plaintiff verdicts begetting more publicity, says James Sabovich of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
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Righthaven V. Hoehn: Bad News For Copyright Trolls
In its recent decision in Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn, the Ninth Circuit made clear that courts must look beyond labels in agreements and evaluate the substance of the rights actually assigned in order to determine whether an assignee has standing to pursue a claim for copyright infringement, say Benjamin Marks and Elisabeth Sperle of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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Why 'Escape From Tomorrow' Likely Won't Make It To Theaters
"Escape From Tomorrow," a movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, was shot on-site at Disney World without the permission or knowledge of The Walt Disney Co. Disney didn't file suit, but it appears that the strategy of silence has largely paid off up to this point, says Brent Lorentz of Winthrop & Weinstine PA.
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FCC Ruling Provides TCPA Guidance For Courts
The Federal Communications Commission’s long-anticipated ruling in the Charvat v. Echostar and U.S. v. Dish Network LLP matter is significant because it confirms that companies that do not exercise undue levels of control over their telemarketers or their call centers will not be held liable when those third parties violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, say attorneys with Locke Lord LLP.
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Viacom V. YouTube Provides Some Insight Into DMCA
Though many of the issues in Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube Inc. are still unsettled in light of the strong likelihood of additional appeal in the Second Circuit, the district court’s analysis provides a basic framework for the Southern District of New York’s interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provisions, say attorneys with Latham & Watkins LLP.
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E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.
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5 Reasons For Optimism In The Venture Capital Community
Not every company can be the next Facebook. But thankfully, for many startups, generating one billion users is not the end goal, nor should it be. Enter “narrowcasting” — one of a few reasons to be optimistic about venture capital, despite the first quarter of 2013 being the slowest for fundraising since 2002, says David Kaufman of Thompson Coburn LLP.
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How To Use The New Trademark Clearinghouse
As the rollout of new Internet domains continues to become more complex, it is crucial for intellectual property owners to familiarize themselves with each step of the trademark clearinghouse registration process in order to have full control over their brand, says Jan Corstens of Deloitte.