Summary On Tuesday, October 11, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the extent to which a design patent holder may recover infringement damages under 35 U.S.C. § 289 when multi-component products are at issue.  Section 289 states that an infringer of a design patent “shall be liable to the owner of the extent of total profit.”  The statute, however, refers only to the “article of manufacture” to which the design is applied.  It does not address...

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Key Notes: The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Final Rule requires disclosure of labor law violations by government contractors. The rule’s provisions have been controversial since the related Executive Order was issued in 2014. The Final Rule takes effect October 25, 2016, with a phased implementation schedule for contractors and subcontractors during the next year. The much-anticipated Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Final Rule is set to take effect October 25, 2016, amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require the disclosure...

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Thanks to the Act of 10 August 2016 modernizing Luxembourg company law, which entered into force on 23 August 2016 (the “New Act”), the Grand Duchy now officially recognizes the possibility for companies to be wound up by means of a simplified procedure. This is unquestionably a useful tool which will further enhance Luxembourg's business-friendly reputation. Pursuant to Article 141 of the Act of 10 August 1915 on commercial companies, as amended by the New Act and Article 1865bis...

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Some of you have requested that we compile a list of properties located in areas that may have been impacted by Hurricane Matthew. We took the counties that were listed as Federal Disaster Areas and mapped all properties in those areas to our database. (For properties in our database, we removed any behind defeased loans or Agency notes.) We believe that the list of loans probably overestimates the number of assets potentially impacted by the storm. Because some of the counties are large...

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On 12 October 2016, the Luxembourg Finance Minister presented the budget law for 2017 to the Parliament (Chambre des Députés). The main tax-related provisions of the Bill of Law N° 7050 (the “Bill”) may be summarised as follows: Luxembourg’s transfer pricing legislation has to date been limited to a general provision enacted under article 56 of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law (“ITL”) which (following article 9.1. of the OECD Model Tax Convention) basically states that if associated enterprises deal with...

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It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot: innovation. In the legal industry, its use is often followed by a fair degree of skepticism. As Matthew Fawcett, general counsel of NetApp, told me last week: “I can’t see anything interesting developmentally that’s happening out there.” With sarcasm, he recalled how more than 15 years ago law firms launched Y2K practices in hopes to land business, noting that he didn’t necessarily blame them for trying. “I feel that world is almost remote...

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In the last few years, Delaware courts have issued several rulings in lawsuits involving complaints of excessive compensation to non-employee directors . The takeaways from these cases can be summarized as follows: Decisions by directors about their own compensation will be reviewed by Delaware courts as a self-dealing transaction under the entire fairness standard, but such decisions can gain the protection of the business judgment rule if such decisions are made pursuant to a director pay limit or proposal that is...

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Barriers have fallen: empowered by social media, consumers are becoming the new “bosses” of corporations and a powerful source of feedback. Thus companies must learn to effectively engage them, to reward them and to positively respond to online criticism, says customer relationship management guru Paul Greenberg. He is the author of 'CRM at the Speed of Light – Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century', the first major customer relationship management manual of the 2.0 age, when the relationship between...

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October 4, 2016 | More than 3,300 toymakers, buyers, licensors and trade guests hailing from 36 countries were in Dallas, TX last week to attend the Toy Industry Association’s (TIA) 10th annual Fall Toy Preview.  Held September 27-29 at the Dallas Market Center, the long-lead marketplace drew 758 buyers from 359 retail outlets – from mass merchants and supermarkets to discount chains and specialty shops – to preview tens of thousands of brand-new toys and games slated for release in...

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Littler's Workplace Policy Institute Insider Report details key labor, employment, and benefits news and events at the federal, state, local, and global levels. The October edition of the Insider Report examines what Congress accomplished before taking another brief recess in preparation for the November elections. The Report also details federal agency rules finalized in September, as well as state and local laws that advanced during this period. The Insider Report includes the following sections: Insider Briefing.  With little more than a...

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