District court’s grant of summary judgment and upholding of the rejection of various claims of plaintiff’s patent application is affirmed where the court properly excluded plaintiff’s new evidence as he had an affirmative and specific duty to disclose to the PTO the evidence excluded by the court, willfully refused to provide the evidence in response to a valid action by the examiner, and presented no acceptable excuse for his failure to properly present the evidence....
IMDb, the internet movie database, can tell you virtually every role an actor has played, what projects an actress has in the pipeline, and even your favorite celebrity’s height. It can also tell you an actor’s age and birthday, at least for now. A new California law, signed by Governor Brown this September, seeks to deter age discrimination in the entertainment industry by requiring websites like IMDB to remove actors’ ages on request....
If all confidentiality agreements were truly kept confidential, it would be hard to determine if they were legally binding. That assertion underlies a basic reason that all confidentiality agreements are not, in fact, binding. Public policy and many laws prohibit confidentiality in various areas. Indeed, some laws mandate disclosure of information that cannot be kept confidential. Here are three types of confidentiality agreements and related problems to avoid: Confidentiality in Employment Matters As in contracts generally, the terms of confidentiality agreements will not be enforceable if they are overly broad....
Photoshop has created many images that you just can’t unsee: a giant shark leaping to bite helicopter; Oprah’s head on Ann-Margret’s body; Forrest Gump in the White House … Seriously, when it comes to photoshopped images, the line between fact and fiction is sometimes pretty blurry. It certainly got one West Virginia judge into big trouble. Judge Stephen O. Callaghan of Nicholas County has been suspended for two years without pay and fined $15,000 because of his “materially false” campaign ad....
If you’re contacted by a recruiter, or out searching for jobs on your own, at some point you will probably be asked about your salary history. If you’ve been raking it in – well, horray! Whipping out your big paycheck can let potential employers know that you’re worth it, at least in the minds of past bosses. What’s a lateral to do? Many recruiters or potential employers will ask to know applicants’ past salaries....
A naked man fell through the ceiling of a women’s bathroom at Boston’s Logan Airport on Saturday before allegedly assaulting an elderly man. The man was identified by police as 26-year-old Boston resident Cameron Shenk, reports The Associated Press. Charges against Shenk for his puzzling airport rampage include attempted murder, mayhem, assault and battery on a police officer, and lewd and lascivious conduct. How did a naked man end up in the ceiling of the Logan Airport’s women’s restroom?...
Lawyers have been called many things over the years: greedy, argumentative, out of touch, cold, mean spirited, etc. A recent case from New York will do little to dispel that portrayal. A top partner at a law firm, Andrew Finkelstein, 45, fired his own brother, Joel Finkelstein, 50, calling him lazy and saying that he displayed “flagrant acts of disloyalty,” and “[did] little or no productive work for nearly a decade....
Remember how the Chief Justice responded to the complaints that the federal judiciary failed to protect employees from sexual harassment and misconduct? Well, a big hire has been made, and it seems to be a step in the right direction for the whole federal judiciary. Jill Langley, a longtime Tenth Circuit employee, has been appointed as the first-ever Judicial Integrity Officer. That position is the result of the Workplace Conduct Working Group that came together after the allegations against Judge Kozinski came to light....
If you’re looking to make a change in your career, there are plenty of jobs out there. But not all of them are cool jobs, the kind of jobs that will bring you interesting work, around interesting people, in an interesting industry. These three are those jobs. This week, as part of our affiliate relationship with Indeed, we’re bringing you the three coolest legal jobs we can find, and they’re a motley crew, covering everything from tech, to contract management, to professional ice hockey....
Vikings MVP Adrian Peterson’s son died after allegedly being beaten last week by a South Dakota man who was a friend of the child’s mother. Joseph Patterson, 27, of Sioux Falls, has been charged with aggravated assault and battery for allegedly abusing Peterson’s 2-year-old son. What potential punishment could the suspect face if convicted? Joseph Patterson has been charged with aggravated assault and aggravated battery, both of which allege physical injuries under egregious circumstances – like assaults committed in the home....
To the dismay of every urban damsel, a parking meter “Robin Hood” group is being sued for harassing parking enforcement officers. Garret Ean and his band of merry men call themselves “Robin Hood of Keene,” as in Keene, New Hampshire. They walk the streets and feed parking meters about to expire, WMUR-TV reports. A far cry from Sherwood Forest, the city of Keene is accusing the group of harassing Meter Maid Marians and interfering with their work....
The D.C. Circuit decided one case on a matter of administrative law, specifically pertaining to the FDA, and another concerning elections. Unity08 v. FEC, No. 08-5526, involved an Administrative Procedure Act challenge to the Federal Elections Commission’s advisory opinion on the question of whether plaintiff would be required to register as a political committee before selecting candidates. The court of appeals reversed summary judgment for defendant on the ground that, absent any compelling ground for distinguishing Machinists, plaintiff was not subject to regulation as a political committee unless and until it selected a “clearly identified” candidate....
In a petition for review of the Secretary of Agriculture’s rule reducing the minimum price required to be paid to milk producers, the petition is denied where 7 U.S.C. section 608c(17)(G) must be read to allow the Secretary an opportunity to determine and consider producers’ feed and fuel costs after the evidentiary record is closed, and the Secretary complied with the statute. Read Arkansas Dairy Coop. Ass’n. v. USDA, No. 08-5406...
Winnie the Pooh is famous for his love of honey but at least he’s not implicated as part of a group of bears that is stealing honey in Seattle. Ballard Bee Co. lost more than 100 pounds of honey during a robbery that occurred sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Beekeepers are pretty sure the culprits walk on four legs and use their paws to get what they want....
The California Supreme Court said the state did not violate constitutional rights when it repealed public workers’ “air time” benefit, which allowed them to buy retirement credits for years they didn’t work. The state legislature took away the benefit in 2012, but public employees challenged the law in Cal Fire Local 2881 v. California Public Employee’s Retirement System. The law did not take away credits from those who already bought them, but stopped future credit purchases....
As a new attorney, you want to be known as conscientious, knowledgeable and … not, well, embarrassing. Nothing makes a bad impression quite like messing up elementary-school stuff, like the proper use of pronouns. Yet it’s easy to do, especially if you spend a lot of time on the Internet, where pronouns seem to be used incorrectly more often than not. So here’s a quick refresher on the classic pronoun mistakes and how to avoid them....
One Oregon neighborhood is struggling with doughnut vandals in a string of incidents where doughnuts, pastries, and even potato salad has been used to vandalize cars and homes. The so-called “Bakery Bandits” have struck for the past six weeks in Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb about 30 minutes west of Portland. Hillsboro Police Lt. Mike Rouches told The Oregonian that in his 25 years of service, he has “never investigated or seen a criminal mischief involving pastries....
A Florida mom is now in the same jail as her daughter after being arrested for mailing her daughter drugs while the daughter was in jail. The 55-year-old mother, Nadine Carroll, is being charged with smuggling contraband into the jail, while her daughter, 27, was charged with possession of cocaine and driving on a suspended license approximately two weeks before her mother sent the drugs. The Florida jail noticed that the envelope sent by Carroll had a chemical smell, and when they opened it, discovered a suspicious substance that turned out to be a type of synthetic opioid....
Tania Isenstein had reached the dog days of her career, and she was dog-tired of it. So the veteran lawyer left the dog-eat-dog world to search for that elusive day that every dog is supposed to have. “Dog gone it,” she said to herself. “I’m going to make a run for it.” She took over a doggy day care business, and found her true collie, er, calling. Seriously, Isenstein is all about dogs these days – about 200,000 of them....
So you’ve been invited to the big holiday party. Congratulations. All the bigwigs will be there. Now you just got to close the deal. But how do you go about picking up clients at the holiday party? If you intend to pick up clients at a holiday party, the title of this post should be redundant. Because even if you’re trying, you should definitely not look like you’re trying. A holiday party is where people get away from it all....
