Thread of legal hubbub

tifosi77
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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby tifosi77 » Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:59 am

Yeah, this is potential for-profit copyright infringement. That's a bag of money.

The thing to look for is some companies try to sneak in auto-renew language. They put it in with the Termination provisions, rather than the Term, hoping the Licensor hasn't retained counsel who will catch it. It usually reads something like....
Notwithstanding the terms of this Section [#] or Section [whatever section # covers the Term], if Licensor does not notify Licensee in writing, consistent with the terms set forth in Section [paragraph # talking about Notices], of Licensor's intention to allow this Agreement to expire as set forth herein, the Agreement shall automatically renew for [however long], and shall continue to automatically renew absent notice from Licensor to the contrary. Such expiration notice shall be delivered no less than 60 days prior to the expiration of the Term, or of any subsequent renewal Term.
They can get fantastically more complicated than that, but it doesn't look that happened here. :wink:

dodint
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Postby dodint » Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:17 pm

Image
The ABA Law Student Division has selected March 28th as the official National Mental Health Day at law schools across the country. Law schools are encouraged to sponsor educational programs and events that teach and foster breaking the stigma associated with severe depression and anxiety among law students and lawyers.
Pray for me on the 28th, fam.

tifosi77
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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby tifosi77 » Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:37 pm

A question for the fellows in 5thAveLand smarter than me...

In 2005 I licensed a movie I produced to a film distribution company. That deal was for 5 years and included the right of first refusal. No additional contracts were signed. It has recently come to my attention that the company that licensed the film in 2005 is still "selling" it and has deals for online distribution via Amazon, Youtube, etc.

Am I wrong in thinking any money they've made off the film since 2010 was obtained by less than ethical means since our original contract was never extended? If so, I'm sure it wouldn't amount to more than a few thousand dollars so I don't know that there's much point in pursuing the matter legally, but I'm a little irked.
Did anything ever come of this? I'm curious if there was follow up.

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Postby AuthorTony » Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:56 pm

Did anything ever come of this? I'm curious if there was follow up.

No. With taxes next month, I don't have the money to hire a lawyer. I'll have to wait until the summer.

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Postby dodint » Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:59 pm

I'll give you free advice and ensure that you get what you're paying for. ;)

AuthorTony
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Postby AuthorTony » Wed Mar 28, 2018 2:15 pm

I'll give you free advice and ensure that you get what you're paying for. ;)
:fist:

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Postby count2infinity » Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:49 am

Patent law is super weird, but there's kind of an interesting situation going on with our company right now. There's a pretty large company that tried to patent our technology that we applied to a part of theirs. Obviously we've decided to fight this as it's our technology. The interesting part is that they're currently sort of backed into a lose-lose corner...

The way the law is currently written a patent is invalid if it is written more than 1 year after a sale or more than 1 year after a public disclosure. They filed their patent 2+ years after the initial sale. If this sale was public, that would invalidate the patent because it's more than a year. If it was a private sale, we could come after them for a breach of NDA because the information they disclosed in their patent application (our data that was shared with them under confidentiality) is a breach of said NDA. So the sale can either be public or private... if public, it's past the 1 year mark and they can't patent it anyways, if it's private they're in violation of the NDA and we can go after them for that.

It was a bold move for them to try to file this patent so that they could get exclusive rights to our technology in their field, but it seems like it will likely backfire. Their patent won't be valid, they've completely lost our trust, and there's the potential for going after them for violation of the NDA (no clue how that would work though...).

tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:30 am

It sounds like your company was protecting the tech as a trade secret. If that's right, it's now public knowledge.

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Postby count2infinity » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:42 am

Either way, the company isn't getting their patent, and they surely aren't getting our technology anymore either. Luckily their biggest competitors have all figured it out and started coming to us for the technology. It's still lose-lose for them in any capacity.

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Postby dodint » Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:35 pm

I'm studying big firm compensation this week and it's a screaming validation for not trying to go into a big firm. My skin crawls just thinking about origination credits, etc. The thought of sucking up to rainmakers to ensure I can generate enough billable hours to justify my existence on an annual basis makes me cringe. Sorry Shyster, I know it's your bread and butter but you're a better man than me.

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Postby willeyeam » Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:50 pm

I always thought this was interesting

Image

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Postby dodint » Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:54 pm

That's part of the reason I don't think that I'm going to bother practicing law as a primary income until I retire from my current career. I'm told average starting salary for an attorney is ~$50k (very broad category with lots of variables, I know). I'm already clearing the Means depicted there now, I just can't see taking that kind of pay cut to start over at the bottom of a profession.

An issue that I'm sure many mid-life law students deal with.

The U
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Postby The U » Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:25 pm

I'm studying big firm compensation this week and it's a screaming validation for not trying to go into a big firm. My skin crawls just thinking about origination credits, etc. The thought of sucking up to rainmakers to ensure I can generate enough billable hours to justify my existence on an annual basis makes me cringe. Sorry Shyster, I know it's your bread and butter but you're a better man than me.
I used to be a lobbyist at a top law firm in D.C. I remember my first week being paraded around to different partner's offices in the legislative group (a mix of attorneys and lobbyists or attorney-lobbyists) and being told "on the dl" by my handler specific individuals were KINGMAKERS. Suck up to this specific man or woman and they'll bring you into their world and the sky will be the limit. It turned out to be 100% accurate for anyone willing to play that game.

Find the right individual and you're all set to the point where you kind of have a blank check to do whatever you want and the rules sort of no longer apply to you. Get this.....I was very close with one of these Kingmakers and had a falling out over the fact that I was co-habitating with my gf at the time and we were not married yet. This person wanted me to move out until I was officially married. They were VERY religious and sort of blackballed me when it became apparent that I wasn't moving out of my place with my then gf (now wife) to make them feel better. It was so bizarre. Certain projects, hookups, and potential "strategic placement" at other outside organizations that were hinted at that were supposed to happen, didn't happen. I did just fine and moved on to other clients and projects but my role as "right hand man" of the Kingmaker was blown.

One example of the king making.....the in-house General Counsel at my previous place of employment is out somewhere and meets somebody at one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. They express interest in getting some additional legislative help for something coming up at the end of the year. My former GC is friends with my Kingmaker at the new firm and facilitates a call, meeting, etc. I had absolutely nothing to do with this deal or introduction AT ALL but was given partial credit by my kingmaker because the intro came from my former GC. I had been at my new job for about 6 weeks at that point and got credit for landing this company and received a 25% raise a few weeks later. No HR, no red tape, just a letter placed on my desk one afternoon informing me of the new $$.

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Postby Shyster » Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:30 pm

I'm studying big firm compensation this week and it's a screaming validation for not trying to go into a big firm. My skin crawls just thinking about origination credits, etc. The thought of sucking up to rainmakers to ensure I can generate enough billable hours to justify my existence on an annual basis makes me cringe. Sorry Shyster, I know it's your bread and butter but you're a better man than me.
I'm not with a big firm, and thank goodness for that. I work at a single-office midsize firm with about 40 lawyers. Given my extremely introverted nature, I'm absolutely terrible at networking and business origination, and if I had been at a Biglaw firm, I'm pretty confident that I would have been fired long ago. I've originated very little business. I create value for my firm through my work, not my business-origination skills. It means that I'll probably never become a shareholder here and be a lifetime associate, but I make a decent enough living that I don't really have a problem with that.

I don't really have a lot of problem finding work. We're pretty close-knit here, and I keep busy doing stuff that a lot of the other litigators don't want to do—namely, heavy-duty research and writing projects. Not many people really like the idea of, for example, having to write a massive summary-judgment brief or an appellate brief, so they're generally quite willing to hand that sort of stuff off to me.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:59 pm

Interesting question just granted allocatur by the PA Supreme Court: Can a mother be found a perpetrator of “child abuse” under the Child Protective Services Law when she is a drug addict while pregnant (i.e., while the child is a fetus)?

http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/ ... 1.pdf?cb=1

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Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:03 pm

That would seem to be admitting that a fetus is a child which is a slippery slope

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Postby Shyster » Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:25 pm

The legal issue avoids that question in an interesting way. The Superior Court held that a mother's use of illegal drugs while pregnant could constitute child abuse under the CPSL if it is established that, by using the illegal drugs, the mother intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly caused, or created a reasonable likelihood of, bodily injury to a child after birth. The facts of the case apparently involved a child that needed 19 days of hospitalization after birth because it was suffering from a variety of withdrawal symptoms. So the question is probably more along the lines of whether a mother can be charged/convicted of child abuse when she does something before birth that will harm (or will continue to harm) the child after birth.

It looks like the Women’s Law Project is representing the mother, and they have the (obviously successful) Petition for Allowance of Appeal posted online. It includes the lower-court's opinions as exhibits:

http://www.womenslawproject.org/wp-cont ... appeal.pdf

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Postby willeyeam » Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:42 pm

Huh, interesting. I can't think of many reasons why I'd be opposed to it right off the bat

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Postby shafnutz05 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:20 am

That law seems perfectly reasonable on its face, but I would imagine the proposal is being met with opposition from the feminist lobby because of the slippery slope argument, as ulf mentioned above. But yes, if you drink during your entire pregnancy, and your child is born with FAS, why in the world should that not be a crime?

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Postby tjand72 » Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:01 pm

Any idea how long the statute of limitations is for disclosures in PA when selling a house? I get water in my basement after every heavy rain, and this wasn't disclosed in the initial contract. We've put up with it, but it's been about 6 years of water and I'm getting pissed. I'm assuming we're SOL, but I didn't know if anyone had any input.

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Postby Shyster » Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:07 pm

Any idea how long the statute of limitations is for disclosures in PA when selling a house? I get water in my basement after every heavy rain, and this wasn't disclosed in the initial contract. We've put up with it, but it's been about 6 years of water and I'm getting pissed. I'm assuming we're SOL, but I didn't know if anyone had any input.

Two years. You are SOL.

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Postby tjand72 » Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:21 pm

Any idea how long the statute of limitations is for disclosures in PA when selling a house? I get water in my basement after every heavy rain, and this wasn't disclosed in the initial contract. We've put up with it, but it's been about 6 years of water and I'm getting pissed. I'm assuming we're SOL, but I didn't know if anyone had any input.

Two years. You are SOL.
Damn. Former owner is deceased anyway, but I was hoping for some recourse.

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Postby dodint » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:35 pm

I did very well at oral argument exercises again. I continue to have the seemingly rare quality of appearing calm and relaxed while simultaneously being terrified because I have no idea what's going on. I was called the most reasonable counselor in the room, hah.

I was literally walking into the courtroom today and found out I prepared to advocate for the defense when I was assigned plaintiff. Derp, came off well though, had opposing counsel's arguments pretty well anticipated.

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Postby dodint » Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:56 am

I got to meet and enjoy a lecture by the two attorneys that organized the victim fund for the I-35W Bridge Collapse back in 2007. Was an incredibly moving and fascinating two and a half hours. Of the hundred or so people in the room I'll be shocked if more than one of them didn't cry at some point (there has to be at least one sociopath in my program, right?). That story should be made into a documentary, it was absolutely riveting from start to finish.

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Postby Tomas » Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:03 pm

Can the local experts comment on legality of this:
A sexual assault victim of former sports doctor Larry Nassar says Michigan State interim president John Engler offered her a secret payoff to settle a lawsuit against the university.

Kaylee Lorincz, 18, confronted Engler during a highly charged board meeting Friday. She said Engler and his special counsel offered her $250,000 while her attorney was not present.
....

According to Lorincz, Engler said to her, "Right now, if I wrote you a check for $250,000, would you take it?"
http://www.espn.com/college-sports/stor ... ing-payoff

In other words, knowing that the person has a lawyer, can you still offer such a payment? I know that Cosmo Kramer had his smoker settlement decided that way, but... :)

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