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August 09, 2024
Ads Group Nixes Anti-Hate Initiative Days After Musk Suit
The World Federation of Advertisers is pulling the plug on an initiative aimed at avoiding advertising next to hate speech and other "illegal or harmful content," days after drawing a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X Corp. calling the program an anticompetitive group boycott.
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August 09, 2024
Home Depot's ERISA Win At 11th Circ. Deepens Circuit Split
The Eleventh Circuit's recent ruling backing Home Depot's defeat of a suit from workers who showed their 401(k) plan was mismanaged, but couldn't tie those lapses to financial losses, adds to a growing circuit split that attorneys say warrants guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court.
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August 09, 2024
3 Notable Trade Disputes Of 2024: A Midyear Report
This year the U.S. Supreme Court refused its last outstanding challenge to the president’s tariff power, a split Federal Circuit panel expanded decades-old duties on plumbing pipes, and the first North American trade pact labor panel tossed Washington’s claims. Here, Law360 revisits the most notable international trade cases of 2024 so far.
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August 09, 2024
Trulieve Settles Fired Retail Worker's Race Bias Suit
Florida-based cannabis company Trulieve has agreed to settle a mixed-race former employee's suit alleging he was fired after complaining that a manager repeatedly made racist comments, including calling him a slur, the worker told a Florida federal court.
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August 08, 2024
ITC Rips Google's Bid To Wield Chevron's End In Sonos Row
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday joined Sonos in urging the Federal Circuit to reject Google's argument that the end of so-called Chevron deference means the appellate court should review precedent on the ITC's patent powers, calling the dispute a "poor vehicle" for such a review.
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August 08, 2024
2nd Circ. Says Fla. Biz Should Have Been More Diligent Earlier
A small Florida chain of souvenir stores had no luck Thursday at the Second Circuit trying to revive allegations that owners of a bankrupt beachwear company concealed the ownership of trademark registrations in a since-settled, decade-old lawsuit, because the chain "should have uncovered the alleged fraud" the first time.
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August 08, 2024
Lululemon Soured Investors With Latest Leggings, Suit Says
Activewear company Lululemon Athletica Inc. faces an investor's proposed class action alleging it failed to disclose issues underlying sluggish U.S. growth, including factors that allegedly affected a recent bungled rollout of its Breezethrough leggings.
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August 08, 2024
Instacart Shopper's Costco Injury Suit Sent To Arbitration
A Maryland federal judge has sent to arbitration a suit seeking to hold Costco liable for an Instacart shopper's slip-and-fall injuries, saying the warehouse club chain is a third-party retailer that falls under the arbitration clause in the grocery delivery company's independent contractor agreement.
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August 08, 2024
Amazon Must Face Pandemic Price-Gouging Claims In Wash.
Washington's high court said on Thursday that Amazon can be sued under the state's Consumer Protection Act over alleged price-gouging early in the COVID-19 pandemic, but stopped short of agreeing with customers that the law bars specific markup percentages.
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August 08, 2024
Pot Cos. Get Creative To Boost Brands Despite Feds' TM Ban
The marijuana industry still lives in the shadows of trademark law while the drug remains federally illegal, leaving businesses and their lawyers to seek workarounds to protect their brands.
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August 08, 2024
Apple Must Produce Docs In Epic Antitrust Fight By Sept. 30
A California federal judge overseeing discovery in Epic Games' antitrust compliance fight with Apple gave the iPhone-maker a Sept. 30 deadline to hand over documentation on its response to foreign antitrust regulations and other internal documents, rejecting Apple's suggested December deadline and calling the 92,000-document review large but "not huge."
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August 08, 2024
Google Says Epic's Own Tech Experts Undermine Remedies
Google continued Wednesday to battle what it says would be a dramatic and costly overhaul of its Play Store if Epic Games is allowed to dictate the terms of an antitrust remedy, telling a California federal judge claims of a cheaper, easier solution are undermined by Epic's own experts.
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August 08, 2024
Pitney Bowes Spins Off E-Commerce Biz Into Ch. 11
A former unit of shipping company Pitney Bowes Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection Thursday in Texas bankruptcy court with more than $100 million in debt and plans to liquidate its assets.
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August 08, 2024
New Car Seat Isn't Yesterday's Model, Judge Says In IP Suit
An Ohio infant car seat company convinced a Delaware federal court that its newly designed car seats are not the same as the patent-infringing ones that were the subject of a sales ban and a $3.2 million court judgment won by a Taiwanese rival.
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August 08, 2024
Insurer Utica Off Hook In High-End Leather Goods Dispute
Utica National Insurance Group is not obligated to defend or indemnify a maker of high-end leather goods against claims it fraudulently induced a former partner into a deal in order to steal his designs and then attempt to drive him out of business, a Massachusetts intermediate appellate court has concluded.
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August 08, 2024
FTC Tells 9th Circ. Booksellers Don't Belong In Amazon Case
The Federal Trade Commission and Amazon both urged the Ninth Circuit not to allow a trade association for independent bookstores to intervene in the government's antitrust case against the e-commerce giant, saying the group's claims are too different.
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August 08, 2024
Deals Rumor Mill: Roche, Thoma Bravo, Klarna
Roche is considering divesting cancer data specialist Flatiron Health, Thoma Bravo is exploring a sale of compliance software maker Cority, and fintech startup Klarna is preparing a secondary-share sale ahead of a planned IPO. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.
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August 08, 2024
Exec Admits Price-Fixing $100M Of Rebar For Storm Rebuild
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the guilty plea Wednesday of a former Puerto Rico steel distributor executive who admitted to fixing prices on rebar used for post-hurricane reconstruction, in a conspiracy that impacted more than $100 million in his company's sales.
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August 08, 2024
Texas Co. Says Timex Infringed Wearable Device Data Patent
A Texas company took Timex Group USA Inc. to Connecticut federal court alleging that the watch company infringed its patent for "systems, methods and apparatuses for enabling wearable device users access to secured electronic systems" by putting out a line of smartwatches for families to keep track of their children.
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August 08, 2024
UK Launches Formal Probe Into Amazon's $4B AI Investment
Britain's antitrust authority launched a formal probe on Thursday into Amazon's $4 billion investment in Anthropic, a U.S. artificial intelligence startup, as it seeks to establish whether it could harm competition in U.K. markets.
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August 07, 2024
Hemp Cos. Owner Says Cousin Ripped Off Formula, Trademarks
The owner of Florida-based CBD and hemp companies White Lab LLC and GS Distribution LLC is suing a company owned by his cousin, saying the cousin has failed to pay up on a distribution agreement and is now trying to steal the trademarks to one of White Lab's product lines.
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August 07, 2024
Kleenex Maker Wants Conn. PFAS Suit Tossed
Kimberly-Clark Corp. is urging a Connecticut federal judge to throw out a proposed class action, saying the suit relies on "speculation and conjecture" to claim its New Milford manufacturing facility and shuttered landfill polluted properties and exposed residents to toxic forever chemicals.
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August 07, 2024
Robot Vacuum Cleaner Patent Ruling Remains Undisturbed
Federal Circuit judges proved unpersuaded on Wednesday to do anything to touch an administrative board ruling that wiped out most, but not all, of the claims in a patent that allegedly covered a new feature in the Roomba brand of robotic vacuum cleaners.
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August 07, 2024
Split Fed. Circ. OK's Penalty Rates For Taiwanese Nail Cos.
A divided Federal Circuit on Wednesday backed the U.S. Department of Commerce's decision to base Taiwanese nail companies' antidumping duties on penalty rates assigned to businesses that refused to cooperate with investigators, saying the practice was the default method.
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August 07, 2024
Google 'May Not Be So Lucky' Next Time Over Chat Deletions
Google's stunning antitrust loss in D.C. federal court Monday dealt another blow against its policies of letting internal chats delete automatically, and it came with a callout of its practice of training employees to avoid competition law "buzzwords."
Expert Analysis
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Big Business May Come To Rue The Post-Administrative State
Many have framed the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions overturning Chevron deference and extending the window to challenge regulations as big wins for big business, but sand in the gears of agency rulemaking may be a double-edged sword, creating prolonged uncertainty that impedes businesses’ ability to plan for the future, says Todd Baker at Columbia University.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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Series
In The CFPB Playbook: Making Good On Bold Promises
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in the second quarter cleared the way for the bureau to resume a number of high-priority initiatives, and it appears poised to charge ahead in working toward its aggressive preelection agenda, say Andrew Arculin and Paula Vigo Marqués at Blank Rome.
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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Dapper Settlement Offers Rules Of The Road For NFT Issuers
The terms of a $4 million settlement in a class action alleging that Dapper Labs sold its NBA Top Shot Moments as unregistered securities may be a model for third parties that wish to avoid securities liability in connection with offering digital asset non-fungible token collectibles, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Opinion
'Trump Too Small' Ruling Overlooks TM Registration Issues
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Vidal v. Elster, which concluded that “Trump Too Small” cannot be a registered trademark as it violates a federal prohibition, fails to consider modern-day, real-world implications for trademark owners who are denied access to federal registration, say Tiffany Gehrke and Alexa Spitz at Marshall Gerstein.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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Why High Court Social Media Ruling Will Be Hotly Debated
In deciding the NetChoice cases that challenged Florida and Texas content moderation laws, what the U.S. Supreme Court justices said about social media platforms — and the First Amendment — will have implications and raise questions for nearly all online operators, say Jacob Canter and Joanna Rosen Forster at Crowell & Moring.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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Constitutional Protections For Cannabis Companies Are Hazy
Cannabis businesses are subject to federal enforcement and tax, but often without the benefit of constitutional protections — and the entanglement of state and federal law and conflicting judicial opinions are creating confusion in the space, says Amber Lengacher at Purple Circle.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.
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Anticipating Disputes In Small Biz Partnerships And LLCs
In light of persistently high failures of small business partnerships and limited liability companies, mediator Frank Burke discusses proactive strategies for protecting and defining business rights and responsibilities, as well as reactive measures for owners.