Expert Analysis

• Opinion

  Biden FRAND Policy Will Help Protect Competition

  

  The Biden administration's recently issued draft policy statement on licensing negotiations and remedies for standard-essential patents subject to voluntary fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms is a welcome departure from the previous U.S. Department of Justice's flawed approach to navigating the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property, says Timothy Muris at Sidley.

• Opinion

  USPTO Must Revoke Fintiv Rule With Or Without New Director

  

  Although U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director nominee Kathi Vidal didn't commit in her Senate hearing to striking down the Patent Trial and Appeals Board's plainly unlawful NHK-Fintiv discretionary denial practice benefitting patent trolls, the agency can and should revoke the rule now, says Scott McKeown at Ropes & Gray.

• How AI Can Transform Crisis Management In Litigation

  

  Attorneys should understand how to use rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technology to help clients prepare for potential catastrophic events and the inevitable litigation arising from them, from predicting crises before they occur to testing legal theories once they arise, say Stratton Horres at Wilson Elser and David Steiger.

• Scope, Circumvention, New Shippers: Key Rule Changes

  

  William Isasi and Rishi Gupta at Covington suggest practices international trade practitioners should adopt in response to changes in U.S. Department of Commerce procedures for requesting scope and circumvention inquiries and new shipper reviews, especially in light of the newly retroactive application of some agency determinations.

• Supervisor Relationships Are Key To Beating Atty Burnout

  

  In order to combat record attorney turnover and high levels of burnout, law firm partners and leaders must build engaging relationships with supervisees, fostering autonomy and control, enabling expression of values, and building a sense of community and belonging, says Anne Brafford at the Institute for Well-Being in Law.

• Opinion

  FTC Rulemaking Risks Expansion Of Unfair-Method Bounds

  

  The Federal Trade Commission's plan to issue rules defining unfair methods of competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act arguably exceeds the commission's power, and isn't justified, because the current case-by-case approach to promoting competition through adjudication is preferable, says Sean Gates at Charis Lex.

• Germany's Google Controls Illustrate Global Antitrust Trend

  

  Germany's recent move to rein in Google with extended restrictions on anti-competitive behavior provides an example of the new aggressive stance regulators around the world are adopting as tech giants grow their power in the digital economy, says Andrea Pomana at ADVANT Beiten.

• What To Expect From Merger Guideline Modernization

  

  The U.S. Department of Justice's and Federal Trade Commission's recent request for comment on amending the merger review guidelines provides perhaps the clearest indication yet of where guideline revisions might focus, including on structural presumptions, the role of market definition and the effect of transactions on labor, say attorneys at MoFo.

• Reevaluating Organizations' Cybersecurity Needs After Log4j

  

  A recently unearthed vulnerability in the popular Apache Log4j software is the latest cyber incident that shows the whack-a-mole response is not sufficient, but there are certain reorientation strategies that can effectively mitigate cybersecurity risk, say Colin Jennings and Ericka Johnson at Squire Patton and Michael McAndrews at PacketWatch.

• The Rising Demand For Commercial Litigators In 2022

  

  Amid broken supply chains, pandemic-induced bankruptcies and a rise in regulation by litigation, strong commercial litigators — strategists who are adept in trying a range of tortious and contractual disputes — are becoming a must-have for many law firms, making this year an opportune moment to make the career switch, say Michael Ascher and Kimberly Donlon at Major Lindsey.

• Import Best Practices Under New Uyghur Forced Labor Law

  

  Rachel Alpert and Grace Signorelli-Cassady at Jenner & Block discuss key provisions of the recently enacted Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and offer compliance strategies that may position importers to demonstrate their supply chains are free from forced labor when the act's provisions presumptively barring many Chinese imports go into effect in June.

• Antitrust's 1900s Nostalgia In The US And Beyond

  

  President Joe Biden's appointees will continue to pursue a return to a previous antitrust era this year — the Federal Trade Commission, in particular, is dusting off its old tools — and similar developments are occurring in Europe and Asia, says Maureen Ohlhausen at Baker Botts.

• 5 Global Digital Markets Regulatory Issues To Watch In 2022

  

  Francesco Liberatore at Squire Patton lays out the key regulatory developments that will affect global digital markets this year, from new enforcement measures aimed at electronic communications services in the European Union to increased cooperation between antitrust officials in the U.S., U.K. and EU.

• USPTO Pilot Program May Bring Welcome If Limited Efficiency

  

  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new Deferred Subject Matter Eligibility Response Pilot Program, in aiming to improve examination efficiency, should appeal to applicants, but its impact may be limited because it is invite-only and applies only to nonfinal office actions, says Kelvin Varghese at Haynes and Boone.

• Opinion

  FTC Should Rethink Market Issues In Facebook Case

  

  The Federal Trade Commission's antitrust prosecution of Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, may have survived the initial litigation stage this week, but the case still does not embrace the markets it purports to fix, says David Reichenberg at Cozen O'Connor.