Expert Analysis

Health companies are a prime target for ransomware attacks due to their sensitive data and relative vulnerability, so they will need compliance and resilience to guard against the increasingly varied ways that hackers can attempt to extract funds, say Alaap Shah and Stuart Gerson at Epstein Becker.

A recent letter from the U.S. Department of Justice to a group of research universities indicated that a proposed technology-focused patent licensing pool contained sufficient competition protections, providing a collaboration road map that higher education can use to support further IP development, say attorneys at BCLP.

This fall, Illinois voters will decide on a proposed collective bargaining amendment to the state constitution, which if enacted would significantly expand both public and private sector bargaining rights, raising questions about federal preemption, union security and more, say Jennifer Jones and Tanja Thompson at Littler. 

Companies can prepare an estimated budget for patent portfolio management by factoring in the expected costs of preparing and filing provisional U.S. patent applications, based on the theoretical target for nonprovisional applications calculated in Part 1 of this three-part article, say Michael Sartori and Matthew Welch at Baker Botts.

As legal proceedings have moved online in light of the pandemic, lawyers may mistakenly believe that recorded Zoom video depositions can be entered as evidence, but without certain safeguards, the testimony is unlikely to be accepted by courts, says Phillip Zisook at Schoenberg Finkel.

Judicially led diversion programs have adapted to the COVID-19 era by providing services online, but recent research points to a disconnect between practitioner and participant perspectives, showing that soliciting user input is crucial to success, says Tara Kunkel at Rulo Strategies. 

The Institute for Justice’s Marie Miller lays out four reasons why, in deciding Thompson v. Clark, the U.S. Supreme Court should reverse an arcane circuit court rule that abandons the foundational presumption of innocence principle and ultimately provides a shield for police and other government officers who violate constitutional rights.

Communicating with clients can be challenging for plaintiffs attorneys due to barriers posed by the current onslaught of unwanted calls, work schedules and other factors, but certain best practices can help, say Scott Heisman and Kimberly Lavin at Verus.

Though the Financial Markets Test Case Procedure has only been used as a collective redress mechanism for the first time recently in Financial Conduct Authority v. Arch Insurance, hopefully it will be called on more often to resolve future post-Brexit issues and other pandemic cases, says Becca Hogan at Signature Litigation.

Former high-level U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors, now at Jones Day, offer suggestions for how to approach meetings with DOJ decision makers in white collar matters, highlighting common counter-productive moves and strategies that maximize the odds of a favorable outcome.

As state legislatures across the U.S. consider bills modeled after California’s lucrative Private Attorneys General Act, employers should gear up for potential litigative burdens, work to mitigate liability risks and get involved in the legislative process, say attorneys at Greenberg Traurig.

In this brief video, attorneys at Baker McKenzie discuss how companies can best serve workers seeking to travel and engage in remote work this summer, and address the wide variety of employment and immigration law considerations.

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Raytheon v. General Electric collapses distinctions between prior art analyses for anticipation and single-reference obviousness, shedding light on enablement requirements for invalidating patent claims, says John Nilsson at Arnold & Porter.

Although New Jersey state and federal courts have decided the majority of dispositive motions in COVID-19 business interruption insurance cases in favor of insurers, policyholders retain a plausible path to recovery depending on the nature of their loss and the precise policy language at issue, say Lee Epstein and Matthew Goldstein at Flaster Greenberg.

The Internal Revenue Service’s recent push to gather information about cryptocurrency accounts is similar to its Swiss bank account investigations of the early 2000s, which should prompt taxpayers to consider voluntarily disclosing transactions before they are individually targeted for enforcement, say Timothy Wagner and Thomas Barnard at Baker Donelson.

A recent spate of pandemic-related insurance decisions — where federal courts found that a temporary inability to use property doesn't qualify as physical loss or damage for coverage purposes — may be used as favorable precedent by cyber insurers denying ransomware loss claims for temporary inability to access data, say Thomas Caswell and Peter Kelly Golfman at Zelle.

Depending on how the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court balance private contractual rights and public policy to void invalid patents in two pending cases, practitioners may have to test new ways of protecting patents from challengers who already received contractual benefits, say Howard Susser and Eric Kaviar at Burns & Levinson.

As the rising popularity of special purpose acquisition companies extends beyond the U.S., attorneys at Morgan Lewis look at how governments in Asia and Europe are positioning themselves through regulatory shifts, and what market trends can be expected in the U.S.

Expanding telehealth and digital pharmacy options like Amazon Pharmacy — which have seen accelerated growth during the pandemic — are entering the compounded medication industry and face a complex, evolving compliance landscape, including state and federal laws and regulations, and standards developed by organizations, say Emily Hussey and Kelly Kearney at Reed Smith.