New England Biz Law Update

The National Labor Relations Board should not have invalidated an employer’s policy granting non-union employees a hiring preference for non-union positions, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found. The employer argued that it instituted its hiring policy in ...

An out-of-state corporation could not reasonably anticipate being subject to personal jurisdiction in Rhode Island based on its Internet marketing and a sales contract derived from that advertising, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled. The Rhode Island plaintiff brought ...

The test for determining whether a meal break is compensable under the Massachusetts Wage Act should be whether an employee was relieved of all duties during the break, a judge from the Superior Court’s Business Litigation Session has ruled. Plaintiff ...

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 ...