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The Federal Circuit decided two patent cases. One involved claims of patent infringement and unfair competition related to patented footwear, commonly known as “Crocs”, and the other involved a finding by the US Patent and Trademark Office, Board of Patent Appeals and Inferences rejecting an application involving divalent antibody fragments. In Crocs, Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, No. 08-1596, the court found that the Commission erred in concluding that plaintiff’s patent ‘858 would have been obvious because prior art taught all of the claimed elements of the ‘859 patent....

Jeremiah Kaylor spent months squatting in a San Francisco mansion and sold 11 of its pricey paintings for diddly-squat before getting caught this weekend. He claimed to be purchasing the Presidio Heights property when police first approached him and he had (fraudulent) documents to prove it. Although police do not know how Kaylor got into the mansion, they say he spent about two months as a squatter there. Now he is in custody on suspicion of burglary after a listing agent found him in the house and detained him....

The California State Bar announced ‘historic reforms’ under a new fee bill, including an amicable separation from its practice sections. The voluntary sections will spin off into a non-profit entity, side-stepping an issue that came up last year. The sections were considering a split then, partly because of new restrictions against spending on alcohol and contracting with resort-style venues for events. For the disciplinary and regulatory arm of the California State Bar, the biggest change comes to the board of trustees....

Brace yourself. There is good news on the horizon, according to the results or a recent survey. Law firm hiring is expected to increase in the fourth quarter of this year. According to projections, legal hiring is expected to rise by 23 percent. Even better, 88 percent of the respondents reported feeling at least somewhat confident that their organization will expand throughout the remainder of 2010. The survey reached 100 attorneys at law firms with 20 or more employees, as well as an additional 100 corporate attorneys at companies with over 1,000 employees....

FindLaw’s Tarnished Twenty isn’t exactly a beauty contest, and being in the top echelons of sports-related legal action isn’t exactly something to write home about. This year, we covered a wide range of legal sports issues, including criminal allegations against Heisman winner Jameis Winston, along with lawsuits against the NFL and even the NCAA over concussions. But a few legal sports stories – some serious, and a few not-so-serious – seemed to grab our readers’ attention more than others....

Friday could have been doomsday for California gun owners. A package of bills, restricting everything from grandfathered high capacity magazines to so-called assault rifles, would have taken California’s gun laws, which are amongst the nation’s most stringent, and made them, hands-down, the most restrictive. And while the signed bills banned lead ammo for hunting, banned high capacity magazine “repair” kits, and beefed up safety and storage requirements, for most gun owners, nothing will truly change after Gov....

This sounds like a case of someone suing themselves. After all, aren’t United States Soccer and the United States women’s national soccer team the same thing? According to a collective bargaining agreement – which expired in 2012 – no. And it’s that CBA that is at issue in a lawsuit between the country’s national soccer federation and its most decorated team. A 50/50 Challenge The U.S. women’s national team are represented by a union, and signed a collective bargaining agreement that covered issues like player compensation and playing and travel conditions....

Go east, young lawyers! Pretty far east! As we celebrate our nation’s liberation from our evil cross-Atlantic oppressors this July, smart lawyers might want to consider an English invasion of their own. Following Britain’s vote to exit the European Union last week, Europe has been in convulsions. Lawmakers are crying foul, the economy is in shambles, and young Britons are up in arms. But if there’s one winner in the Brexit vote, it’s probably lawyers, who will be needed in droves to make sense out of the coming legal mess....

This week on #DearFindLaw, we’re presented with the issue of joining a bar association while in law school. So how can bar association memberships pay off for law students, and which one(s) are worth the annual dues? Here’s what you need to know: Thanks for your question. Law school is a “professional” school, which means you want to go above and beyond merely joining school-sponsored academic clubs like you did at your undergraduate institution....

What should you do immediately after a data breach? 1) Erase your browser history. 2) Go out for a few drinks. 3) Look for a new job. Just kidding. But seriously, there are some common mistakes people make after discovering a data breach. Here are a few things not to do: Don’t Panic Alright, maybe panic a little. But your first call should be to your IT specialist, then let that person worry about fixing the breach....

The entire point of a Snuggie – beyond being the signature garment of our cultural descent into the moral abyss between the couch cushions – is that it is both a blanket and clothes. Instead of peeking your arms into the real world, wearing long sleeves indoors, or even just putting your bath robe on backwards, you can purchase an ambiguous fleece amalgamation in designs sure to put your sloth on display, like the world’s worst invisibility cloak....

Data, the affable android of Star Trek fame, had a lesser-known brother named Lore. In the fictional universe, they were identical on the outside but very different on the inside. They were incalculably intelligent, yet as different as good and evil. Similarly in the real world, artificial intelligence has great potential to improve the legal condition. But this blog is about AI’s dark side. Good v. Evil Smart technology has quickly risen to celebrity status, as law firms and companies have welcomed software robots into their offices with fan fare....

A federal appeals court rejected Apple’s request to transfer a patent case out of Texas. Apple argued that the plaintiff had “no meaningful connection” to the district court in Texas. But the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals disagreed, leaving Apple in a jurisdiction that has not been kind. In a separate Texas case, a district court recently ordered Apple to pay half a billion dollars for patent infringement. It looks like nobody is getting out of patent cases there without a fight....

Deemed a mere mortal, a baby originally named Messiah is now just “Martin.” A Tennessee Child Support Magistrate ruled the baby can’t be named “Messiah” because it’s “a title that’s only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ.” Does the magistrate’s ruling have a prayer of holding up under Tennessee law? In Tennessee, an unmarried mother has the sole legal right to choose her child’s first name and middle name....

Bad news sports betters — online sports gambling site Bodog has been shut down. Federal authorities have indicted Calvin Ayre, the site’s Canadian founder, along with three other foreign executives. The group has been accused of conducting an illegal international sports gambling business and conspiring to commit money laundering. Records show Bodog wired at least $100 million to gamblers located in Maryland and elsewhere in the United States. Bodog appears to be a wholly foreign corporation....

Robes and baby-kissing aside, lawmaking can be messy. Judges sometimes wash their hands of decisions, telling legislators it’s their problem. Legislators sometimes blow back with their own versions of judicial opinions. In California, lawmakers are trying to clean up a major issue in the gig economy. But every lobbyist knows, it’s like making sausage – messy. Gig Economy Last year, the California Supreme Court laid down a new rule for classifying independent contractors....

When it comes to state-run agencies, it’s often not a matter of if they’ll mess up, but rather a matter of when or how. This is one of those cases. The plaintiff here, Robert Lopez, was incarcerated past his release date. This probably violated his constitutional rights. He is not alone, as an estimated 594 inmates were released late, between January 1, 2004 and May 4, 2008. For him, the late release was caused by a clerical error on the minute order from the court, an error that the Department of Corrections twice attempted to correct by sending letters to the trial court....

Today was a big day for patents. Gene patents, to be exact. The Supreme Court remanded the Myriad Genetics case earlier this year, and this morning the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the matter. At the center of the case is the concept that laws of nature are not patentable. We talked about the patentability of business methods last week. In fact, we talked about it twice....

Last week, we inaugurated the FindLaw Court Website March Madness Tournament, where we use a single-elimination tournament to determine which, among the fifty state supreme courts, thirteen federal circuits, and U.S. Supreme Court, has the best website. Did SCOTUS win last week? Not even a little. It got trounced in the third round of the Eastern conference by Pennsylvania, which ended up winning the region. This week: the Southern Conference....

Judge Janice Rogers Brown said courts should not step into political issues, like deciding whether the United States wrongfully killed bystanders in a drone attack. Then the judge told us how she really felt about it. “Our democracy is broken,” she wrote in Ahmed Salem Bin Ali Jaber v. United States. “We must, however, hope that it is not incurably so.” “Signature Strikes” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously affirmed the dismissal of a complaint by a civilian family against the U....