Expert Analysis

• Cos. Must Prepare For Calif. Legislation That Would Ban PFAS

  

  Pending California legislation that would ban the sale or distribution of new products containing intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances could affect thousands of businesses — and given the bill's expected passage, and its draconian enforcement regime, companies must act now to prepare for it, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

• What Cos. Are Reporting Under New SEC Cybersecurity Rule

  

  Four months after its effective date, 14 companies have made disclosures under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's mandatory cybersecurity incident reporting rule, and some early trends are emerging, including a possible rush to file, say attorneys at Debevoise.

• Proactive Strategies Can Reduce Truck Cos.' Accident Liability

  

  The legal complications of trucking accidents can be grave — so transportation companies and their attorneys should implement proactive strategies that include driver safety programs, pre-accident legal counseling, electronic monitoring and attorney involvement at crash scenes, says Mandy Kolodkin at Segal McCambridge.

• Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape

  

  The Second Circuit's recent decision in Williams v. Binance highlights the judiciary's struggle to apply the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank ruling to digital assets, and illustrates how Morrison's territorial limits on the federal securities laws have become convoluted, say Andrew Rhys Davies and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.

• Data Protection Steps To Consider After Biden Privacy Order

  

  A recent White House executive order casts a spotlight on the criticality of securing sensitive content communications, presenting challenges and necessitating a recalibration of practices, especially for lawyers, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.

• Practical Pointers After Fed. Circ. Double-Patenting Decision

  

  With the Federal Circuit recently denying a full court review of In re: Cellect, a decision regarding obviousness-type double-patenting, affected patent family holders should evaluate their rights through both patent prosecution and future litigation lenses to minimize risks, say Austin Lorch and Jeff Wolfson at Haynes Boone.

• Why Corporate DEI Challenges Increasingly Cite Section 1981

  

  As legal challenges to corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives increase in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on race-conscious college admissions last year, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act is supplanting Title VII as conservative activist groups' weapon of choice, say Mike Delikat and Tierra Piens at Orrick.

• What New Conn. Insurance Bulletin Means For Data And AI

  

  A recent bulletin from the Connecticut Insurance Department concerning insurers' usage of artificial intelligence systems appears consistent with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' gradual shift away from focusing on big data, and may potentially protect insurers from looming state requirements despite a burdensome framework, say attorneys at Day Pitney. 

• Surveying Legislative Trends As States Rush To Regulate AI

  

  With Congress unlikely to pass comprehensive artificial intelligence legislation any time soon, just four months into 2024, nearly every state has introduced legislation aimed at the development and use of AI on subjects from algorithmic discrimination risk to generative AI disclosures, say David Kappos and Sasha Rosenthal-Larrea at Cravath.

• How Duty Of Candor Figures In USPTO AI Ethics Guidance

  

  The duty of candor and good faith is an important part of the artificial intelligence ethics guidance issued last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and serious consequences can visit patent and trademark applicants who violate that duty, not just their attorneys and agents, says Michael Cicero at Taylor English.

• Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change

  

  Despite speculation that the Delaware Supreme Court could drive away corporations if it lowered the bar for business judgment review in its Match.com stockholder ruling, the court broke its recent run of controversial precedent-busting decisions by upholding, and arguably strengthening, minority stockholder protections against controller coercion, say Renee Zaytsev and Marc Ayala at Boies Schiller.

• The Future Of BIPA Insurance Litigation After Visual Pak

  

  A recent Illinois appellate court decision, National Fire Insurance v. Visual Pak, may have altered the future of insurance litigation under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act by diametrically opposing a prominent Seventh Circuit ruling that found insurance coverage for violations of the act, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

• Patent Lessons From 8 Federal Circuit Reversals In March

  

  A number of Federal Circuit patent decisions last month reversed or vacated underlying rulings, providing guidance regarding the definiteness of a claim that include multiple limitations of different scopes, the importance of adequate jury instruction, the proper scope of the precedent, and more, say Denise De Mory and Li Guo at Bunsow De Mory.

• First 10b5-1 Insider Trading Case Raises Compliance Issues

  

  The ongoing case against former Ontrak CEO Terren Peizer is the U.S. Department of Justice's first insider trading prosecution based primarily on the filing of 10b5-1 plans, and has important takeaways for attorneys reviewing corporate policies on the possession of material nonpublic information, say attorneys at Cadwalader.

• Tenn. Law Protecting Artists From AI Raises Novel Issues

  

  Tennessee recently enacted a law that extends the right of publicity protection to individuals' voices in an attempt to control the proliferation of artificial intelligence in the music industry, presenting fascinating questions about the First Amendment, the fair use doctrine and more, say attorneys at Davis Wright.