New England Biz Law Update

A corporation that acquired a retail food business could be sued by employees claiming to have been paid less than the amount required by federal and state minimum wage and overtime laws, a U.S. magistrate judge has determined. The defendant ...

A federal court decision related to claims brought under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 indicates that it will be difficult to end litigation in its early stages using the act’s whistleblower provision, attorneys say. The case involved an ...

Written by: Cameron G. Shilling & Kevin Lin Published in the New Hampshire Business Review (2/9/17) and online at www.mclane.com Cyber attacks and costly accidental losses of sensitive personal and financial information are no longer confined to retailers like Target ...

This article originally ran on blog.sandw.com. Recently, the Coca-Cola Company sought to register two hashtags as trademarks: #cokecanpics and #smilewithacoke. For those who may wonder why: various online social networking services (like Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, to name a few) ...

February 2, 2017 Blogs, IP Law Bulletin Michael Visconti, III The America Invents Act (AIA) established a number of procedures for challenging a granted patent at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). While virtually anyone can challenge a patent ...

Every time a current or former employee threatens or brings legal action, in-house counsel faces the question: Should we litigate or settle? But the question often is not as straightforward as it seems. If you forego an early settlement, will ...

On 11 October 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Merck & Cie’s petition for certiorari in Merck & Cie v. Gnosis S.p.A., No. 16–125, 2016 WL 4014485, at *1 (U.S. Oct. 11, 2016). With this, the debate about the proper ...

We all know the allure of email. Easy, rapid, mobile, less intrusive than a phone call, less laborious than a letter, the supremely flexible and ubiquitous facilitator of communication. As generations raised on computers and email fill the ranks of ...

Last month the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“the Office”) announced its cooperation in a Department of Justice investigation into a trademark scam perpetrated by two California men that defrauded about 4,446 people of $1.66 million. The investigation resulted ...

Seyfarth Synopsis: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently held that the FAAAA preempts the second prong of the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Statute as applied to certain delivery drivers.  Although the Court limited the scope of its decision, the decision is ...