Wasn't That Supposed to be Made in the USA?

Made in the USA.jpgDespite the existence of long-standing U.S. laws strongly favoring the purchase of domestic products for use by governmental entities, in governmental programs and particularly the fulfillment of Department of Defense (“DoD”) contracts, a surprising number of companies still attempt to circumvent these laws.  They do so at their own peril.  Recognizing the harm likely to befall American workers as a result, an increasing number of employees and former employees have “blown the whistle” on these practices in recent years and teamed up with the U.S. Government to curtail this trend.

The Buy American Act, 41 U.S.C. §§ 83018305, (“BAA”) was enacted in 1933 under President Hoover as part of New Deal legislation intended to help struggling American depression era companies.  The BAA superseded an 1875 statute that “related to preferential treatment of American material contracts for public improvements.” (1933, Sect. 10).   The law carried with it a very simple idea: require the government to exercise a clear preference for US-made products in its purchases to bolster the American economy.

To this day, the BAA continues to require federal agencies to purchase “domestic end products” and use “domestic construction materials” in contracts exceeding certain dollar amounts performed in the United States. Unmanufactured end products or construction materials qualify as “domestic” if they are mined or produced in the United States. Manufactured products are treated as “domestic” if they are manufactured in the United States, and either (1) the cost of components mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States exceeds 50% of the cost of all components, or (2) the items are commercially available off-the-shelf items.

Exemptions and exceptions to the applicability of the BAA exist. For example, the BAA does not apply if the purchasing agency determines “it to be inconsistent with the public interest, or the cost to be unreasonable.” Furthermore, the U.S. Trade Agreements Act of 1979 authorizes the President to waive any procurement law or regulation that accords foreign products less favorable treatment than that given to domestic products in foreign lands.  Additionally, purchases from Canada and Mexico are exempt from BAA prohibitions under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Other treaties and agreements also limit the BAA.  Despite these, the BAA continues to cast a wide liability net for those that seek to willfully or knowingly circumvent it.

Similar to the BAA, the Berry Amendment was passed in 1941 to promote the U.S. economy through the preferential purchase of certain U.S. goods. The Amendment was eventually codified as 10 U.S.C. 2533a in 2002.  The law prohibits the Department of Defense (“DoD”) from utilizing any funding available to or appropriated by the DoD for the purchase of the following end product items from “non-qualifying countries” unless these items are wholly of U.S. origin: food; clothing; tents, tarpaulins, or covers; cotton and other natural fiber products; woven silk or woven silk blends; spun silk yarn for cartridge cloth; synthetic fabric or coated synthetic fabric (including all textile fibers and yarns that are for use in such fabrics); canvas products, or wool (whether in the form of fiber or yarn or contained in fabrics, materials, or manufactured articles); or any item of individual equipment manufactured from or containing such fibers, yarns, fabrics, or materials; and hand or measuring tools. Noticeably absent from the definition of “qualifying country” are China, Japan, Thailand and Korea- among others.

Congress revised the Berry Amendment for fiscal years 2007 and 2008 with National Defense Authorization Act. The revised statute, 10 U.S.C. 2533b, declares that the DoD is prohibited from acquiring specialty metals or component parts for the use in the construction of aircraft, missile and space systems, ships, tank and automotive items, weapon systems, or ammunition unless the DoD itself acquires those materials directly.  In other words, contractors engaged in the production of these items must use American made specialty metals or require that the DoD obtain these materials and component parts for use in any such fabrication and manufacturing.

Despite the existence numerous limitations with the Buy American Act, Berry Amendment and Trade Agreements Act, as discussed above, the United States Government and private citizen plaintiffs (known as Relators) have recently collaborated in bringing numerous False Claims qui tam actions against companies seeking to profit at the expense of the American Taxpayers. In the majority of these cases, contractors attempted to pass off foreign goods as made in the U.S.A.  Examples of these include: MedTronic (relabeled Chinese devices allegations – $4.4 million settlement); ECL Solutions (conceal country of origin-$1.066 million civil forfeiture); Invacare (wrongfully certified as American Made- $2.6 Million settlement); Staples (foreign made goods- $7.4 million settlement), Office Depot (foreign made goods – $4.75 million settlement) and Office Max (sale of goods not permitted by Trade Agreements Act results in $9.72 million settlement).

According to Justice Department statistics released last week, whistleblowers filed 638 False Claims Act lawsuits in FY2015. Because these cases remain under seal sometimes for years, we do not know how many involved violations of BAA or related laws. We are aware from conversations with the Justice Department of an uptick in these claims, however.

Whistleblowers who bring claims under the False Claims Act can earn up to 30% of whatever the government collects from the wrongdoer. To qualify, one must have original knowledge or information about the fraud. Successful whistleblowers are usually current or former employees but anyone with inside information can file.

Article By Brian Mahany of Mahany Law

© Copyright 2015 Mahany Law

Regulating Recording Features of Personal Wearable Technology in Workplace

With each passing day, personal wearable technology, like the Apple Watch and Google Glass, becomes more mainstream and technologically advanced.  Employers should be aware of the challenges posed by employees wearing their technology into the workplace.  Businesses have already had to consider decreased productivity, exposure to computer viruses, and potential data breaches caused by personal wearable technology in the workplace. In addition, employers are now wondering if personal wearable devices are being used to discretely and instantaneously record events and copy information in the workplace. Several employment laws are implicated when employers seek to regulate the recording features of personal wearable technology in the workplace.

Restrictions on personal wearable technology in the workplace are subject to Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which prohibits workplace rules and policies that chill discussions among non-management employees about wages, working conditions, work instructions, and the exercise of other concerted activities for mutual aid or protection.  NLRB General Counsel Memorandum No. 15-04  contains examples of both over broad and lawful work rules restricting recording devices in the workplace.  These examples are instructive when drafting employment policies restricting personal wearable devices.

Under Section 7, employers may prohibit employees from copying or disclosing confidential or proprietary information about the employer’s business, using wearable technology or otherwise.  Employers may also prohibit employees from taking, distributing, or posting on social media pictures, video, and audio recordings of work areas while on working time, so long as the policy carves an exception for conduct protected by Section 7.  The exception should expressly cite specific examples of permitted recordings, such as “taking pictures of health, safety and/or working condition concerns or of strike, protests and work-related issues and/or other protected concerted activities.”  Existing employment policies restricting personal cell phone and camera use in the workplace should be updated to include restrictions on the use of recording features of wearable technology.

The recording features of personal wearable technology also provide new methods and means for employees to engage in unlawful workplace harassment and other workplace misconduct.  Employers should consider revising their anti-harassment and conduct policies to prohibit the use of wearable technology, including its recording features, in an unlawful manner.  As technology continues to evolve, so too should employment policies, to address the use of such personal devices in the workplace.

Article By Stan Hill of Polsinelli PC

Oh What Fun It Is To Ride . . . A Hoverboard? This Year’s Must-Have Holiday Gift Poses Potential Litigation Risks for Manufacturers

back to the future hoverboardIn 1989, the Back to the Future franchise made several fanciful predictions about 2015.  One prediction may now be coming true: hoverboards have hit the streets — sort of.  The currently-available hoverboards, as opposed to the Hollywood fantasy ones, are more properly described as hands-free, self-balancing scooters.  Fueled by viral videos and celebrity social media posts, these battery-powered scooters are quickly becoming the must-have gift of the holiday season.

As the popularity of these hoverboards increases, however, so too does the potential for claims against manufacturers and sellers.  Over the last three months, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) has reportedly learned about nearly 20 separate injuries from hoverboard-related accidents, ranging from sprains and contusions to broken bones and at least one head injury.

While the CPSC has not taken any formal action in response to any of these injury reports, that could change based on recent news reports. In the past two weeks, there have been two separate reports of hoverboards spontaneously igniting and causing a fire. This type of potential hazard could capture the attention of consumers, manufacturers, and regulators alike.

In Louisiana, a family reportedly has sued a hoverboard manufacturer claiming that the hoverboard burst into flames while charging, destroying their home.  In Alabama, a man recently posted a video showing his hoverboard engulfed in flames after it allegedly caught fire while in use.   Although the CPSC has said that it has not yet received any reports of injuries due to hoverboard fires, it has reportedly announced that it is investigating the product line based on these fire-related complaints.

Despite these reports, the market for hoverboards shows no signs of slowing, particularly as children make their wish lists for the holiday season.   As manufacturers, distributors, and sellers rise to meet that growing demand, they also should plan to meet the accompanying regulatory and litigation risks that follow.

© 2015 Schiff Hardin LLP

How to Be Better at Email Marketing

To succeed at email marketing, you need to catch prospects at the right time with the right message.  This is very difficult to do unless you automate the process. In fact, Emarketer research shows companies that connect with their customers via automated email marketing see conversion rates as high as 50%.

Here are some other email marketing automation stats, courtesy of myemma.com:

  • Companies that automate emails are 133% more likely to send messages that coincide with the purchase cycle of their customers.
  • Relevant emails drive 18x more revenue than broadcast emails.
  • Personalized emails generate up to 6x higher revenue than non-personalized emails.
  • The #1 reported benefit of email marketing automation is the creation of more and better leads.
  • Automated emails get 119% higher click rates than broadcast emails.

Using email marketing automation will increase your open and click-through rates, which will in turn increase your conversion rates.

And while automating the process is a critical key to email marketing success, you also need to know how to create great marketing emails that capture your prospect’s attention and encourage them to actually read it.

The folks at QuickSprout have created this infographic that details all the working parts of a great marketing email. Use it as a guide the next time you sit down to pound out your monthly e-newsletter:

email marketing

Article By Stephen Fairley of The Rainmaker Institute

© The Rainmaker Institute, All Rights Reserved

Proxy Advisory Firms Release Policy Updates for 2016

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, two leading proxy advisory firms, recently published their 2016 proxy voting guidelines, which include updates applicable to the 2016 proxy season.

Institutional Shareholder Services

Key policy updates for US companies reflected in ISS’s 2016 proxy voting guidelines include:

Overboarding: Beginning in 2017, ISS will issue negative vote recommendations for non-CEO directors who sit on more than five public company boards (down from six under the current policy). For CEOs, the outside directorship limit will remain at two. In 2016, ISS will note in its analysis whether a director is serving on more than five public company boards.

Unilateral Board Actions: For established public companies, ISS will continue its policy of generally recommending that shareholders withhold votes (in uncontested elections) from directors who have unilaterally adopted a classified board structure, implemented supermajority vote requirements to amend the bylaws or charter or otherwise adopted charter or bylaw amendments that diminish the rights of shareholders. The negative recommendation would continue in subsequent years until the unilateral action is reversed or approved by stockholders. For newly public companies that have taken action to diminish shareholder rights prior to or in connection with an IPO, directors may be subject to negative vote recommendations under the updated policy, determined on a case-by-case basis (with significant weight given to shareholders’ ability to change the governance structure in the future through a simple majority vote and their ability to hold directors accountable through annual director elections).

Compensation of Externally Managed Issuers: The updated “Problematic Pay Practice” policy provides that an externally managed issuer’s failure to provide sufficient disclosure for shareholders to reasonably assess the compensation practices and payments made to executive officers on the part of the external manager will be deemed a problematic pay practice, and will generally warrant a recommendation to vote against the issuer’s “say-on-pay” proposal.

For a complete overview of the 2016 updates to ISS’s proxy voting guidelines, click here. ISS also recently updated both its Equity Plan Scorecard frequently asked questions (FAQs) and QuickScore 3.0. The updated 2016 US Equity Plan Scorecard FAQs, effective for meetings on or after February 1, 2016, can be found here, and QuickScore 3.0 can be found here.

Glass Lewis

Significant policy updates to Glass Lewis’s 2016 proxy season guidelines include:

Conflicting Management and Shareholder Proposals: Going forward, Glass Lewis will consider the following factors when it is analyzing and determining whether to support conflicting management and shareholder proposals: (1) the nature of the underlying issue; (2) the benefit to the shareholders from implementation of the proposal; (3) the materiality of the differences between the management and shareholder proposals; (4) the appropriateness of the provisions in light of the company’s shareholder base, corporate structure and other relevant circumstances; and (5) a company’s overall governance profile and, specifically, its responsiveness to previous shareholder proposals and its adoption of “progressive” shareholder rights provisions.

Exclusive Forum Provisions: Glass Lewis will no longer automatically recommend a “withhold” vote against the chairman of the nominating and corporate governance committee of a company that adopts exclusive forum provisions in connection with its initial public offering. Instead Glass Lewis will weigh exclusive forum provisions in a newly public company’s governing documents with other provisions that Glass Lewis believes unduly limit shareholder rights (e.g., supermajority vote requirements, classified board and/or a fee shifting bylaw). Glass Lewis will continue, however, to recommend voting against the chairman of the nominating and corporate governance committee when a company adopts an exclusive forum provision without shareholder approval outside of an IPO, merger or spin-off.

Nominating Committee Performance: Glass Lewis may consider recommending shareholders vote against the chair of the nominating committee where the board’s failure to ensure the board has directors with relevant experience––either through periodic director assessment or board refreshment––has contributed to a company’s poor performance. Notably, Glass Lewis does not define “poor performance.”

Overboarding: Beginning in 2017, consistent with ISS’s policy update described above, Glass Lewis will generally recommend voting against (1) any director who serves on more than five public company boards and (2) any executive officer of a public company who serves on a total of more than two public company boards. Like ISS, during 2016, Glass Lewis may note a concern where a director serves on (x) more than five total boards for directors who are not also executives, and (y) more than two boards for a director who serves as an executive officer of a public company.

For a complete overview of Glass Lewis’s 2016 proxy voting guidelines, click here.

©2015 Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

Ariosa v. Sequenom: In Search of Yes After a Decade of No

The Federal Circuit this Wednesday declined to reconsider its June decision in Ariosa v. Sequenom, a closely watched medical diagnostics case involving patents on cell-free fetal DNA testing. Biotech companies, investors, and patent lawyers alike should expect a prompt petition for certiorari, and should hope that the Supreme Court grants it.  (Disclosure: I was one of twenty-three law professors who submitted an amicus brief urging the Federal Circuit to grant en banc rehearing.)

In the last decade, the Supreme Court has suggested in case after case that the inventions they were considering were not merely unworthy of patent protection because they were, say, not inventive enough or useful enough or disclosed in enough detail. Rather, the Court in these cases gave us information about the very boundaries of the patent system—by placing the disputed inventions outside those boundaries altogether. But they have not yet told us what is just inside those boundaries.

This legal uncertainty has a significant chilling effect on investment in innovation, one that we are increasingly able to quantify.  As USPTO Chief Economist Alan Marco and I explained in a 2013 paper in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, when a court issues a decision resolving the legal uncertainty over whether a patent was valid, that newfound certainty actually moves the market as much as the initial patent grant does.  In other words, the unpredictability of courts forces the market to discount—by as much as half—how much trust to put in the legal rights that the Patent Office issues.

Patent holder Sequenom certainly experienced the downside of that uncertainty, as Wednesday’s rehearing denial sent its stock price tumbling over 14% in just two days.  Others have taken a hit as well, such as the large-cap DNA analysis firm Illumina, which has pursued Ariosa in a separate patent litigation and whose stock price fell 7% across the same two-day period.

The reason for this uncertainty is that we are effectively back in the late 1970s, when the Court was prominently rejecting inventions as patent-ineligible subject matter—Gottschalk v. Benson in 1972 and Parker v. Flook in 1978—without saying anything concrete about what was eligible.  Relief would come only after Diamond v. Chakrabarty in 1980 and Diamond v. Diehr in 1981, when the Court finally produced binding precedents going the other way.

The result is that today’s patentees can only try to run away from the settlement risk mitigation patent in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (2014), the breast cancer genetic diagnostic patent in AMP v. Myriad (2013), the thiopurine dosage monitoring patent in Mayo v. Prometheus (2012), the energy futures risk hedging patent application in Bilski v. Kappos (2010), and, although they were never definitively adjudicated, the vitamin deficiency diagnostic patents in LabCorp v. Metabolite (2006).  There is no case yet to run toward.

Ariosa v. Sequenom could have been that case and still can be, if the Court grants certiorari.  Certainly the Federal Circuit order has framed the issue well.  The per curiam order denying en banc rehearing was accompanied by three opinions that addressed in different combinations both the reach and the wisdom of the Supreme Court’s recent precedents.

Judge Dyk’s concurrence concluded that the precedents, particularly Mayo and Alice, do apply to the present facts and that those precedents are generally sound.  He invited “further illumination” from the Supreme Court only on whether the all-important inventive concept must come at the second step of the two-step Mayo test (application of the natural law or abstract idea) or may also come at the first step (discovery of the natural law).  Meanwhile, Judge Newman’s dissent concluded that the precedents, particularly Mayo and Myriad, do not apply here, for the facts “diverge significantly.”  She found the Sequenom patent’s subject matter to be eligible and would have proceeded to more specific patentability analysis under §§ 102, 103, 112, etc.

Their midpoint and the best argument for certiorari was Judge Lourie’s concurrence, which agreed that Mayo controls, with “no principled basis to distinguish this case from Mayo”—but which also urged that Mayo and the Supreme Court’s other precedents from Bilski onward are an increasingly unsound basis for differentiating between natural laws and abstract ideas on the one hand, and applications of those laws and ideas on the other hand.  Echoing a previously expressed position of the Patent Office, he favored the “finer filter of § 112” for issues of indefiniteness or undue breadth (rather than what the agency’s post-Bilski Subject Matter Eligibility Guidelines called the “coarse filter” of § 101).

He also pushed back directly against a argument that the Supreme Court frequently invokes to express its preference for flexible standards that foster over predictable rules that can be manipulated: the draftsman’s art.  Decisions from Flook and Diehr to Mayo and Alice have rested in part on the suspicion that patent lawyers may at any time evade substantive doctrinal limitations through clever claim drafting.  To this Judge Lourie’s opinion aptly responded that “a process, composition of matter, article of manufacture, and machine are different implementations of ideas, and differentiating among them in claim drafting is a laudable professional skill, not necessarily a devious device for avoiding prohibitions.”

In these regards, Judge Lourie’s approach may well represent the “center” of the Federal Circuit on subject-matter eligibility.  He was in the en banc majority in Bilski and authored the panel opinion in Mayo.  He authored both panel majority opinions in Myriad (before and after the Supreme Court’s GVR order).  And he authored the five-judge en banc plurality opinion in Alice, whose analysis was ultimately consolidated and endorsed in the Supreme Court’s opinion in that case.

With the issues so well framed and the recent subject-matter eligibility precedents so well synthesized, then, there is reason to be optimistic that a decade of hearing “no” from the Supreme Court may finally give way to a “yes” and better orient us on the true boundaries of our patent system.

© Copyright 2015 Texas A&M University School of Law

Target to Pay Nearly $40 Million to Settle with Banks over Data Breach; Total Costs Reach $290 Million

A settlement filed Wednesday provides that Target Corp. will pay $39.4 million to the banks and credit unions who brought class action claims against the retailer for alleged losses the financial institutions suffered as a result of Target’s 2013 data breach.  The breach, which impacted as many as 110 million individuals, compromised as many as 40 million credit cards.

This most recent settlement comes on the heels of a $67 million settlement with Visa, and a $10 million settlement with consumers, both earlier this year.  The most recent settlement brings Target’s total costs to a staggering $290 million.  Target expects insurers to reimburse it for only $90 million of that total, and shareholder derivative lawsuits are still pending, as well as regulatory enforcement and investigation actions by the FTC and various state attorneys general.

While financial institution settlements now top $100 million, trade groups representing banks and credit unions have argued that the Target breach actually cost their members more than $200 million.

Many will recall that the Target breach began after an HVAC vendor was hacked, providing cyber criminals access to Target’s backend system through its vendor interface.  While the breadth and scope of Target’s losses are somewhat mind numbing, this settlement should serve as yet another reminder why a strong vendor management system including privacy and data security policies and audits is especially important in this day and age.

© Polsinelli PC, Polsinelli LLP in California

Key Changes to the Federal Rules Governing Discovery

Important amendments went into effect on December 1.

The major changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that govern discovery in federal cases affect Rules 26, 34, and 37.[1]

Changes to Rule 26(b)(1)

The concept of proportionality and its factors are specifically included in the scope of discoverable information. The factors relating to proportionality include

    the importance of the issues at stake in the action;
the amount in controversy;
the parties’ relative access to relevant information;
the parties’ resources;
the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues; and
whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.

The language that defines the scope of discovery has also changed—the former language that discovery should be “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence” was removed. The Advisory Committee stated that this language was wrongly interpreted to define the scope of discovery and that such a reading has lead to abusively overbroad discovery.

Further, the new version of the rule includes a cross-reference to 26(b)(2) to underscore the court’s obligation to supervise discovery to prevent abuse by appropriately limiting the scope of discovery.

Last, the amendment drops the language “for good cause, the court may order discovery of any matter relevant to the subject matter involved in the action” for being unnecessary and rarely invoked.

Changes to Rule 26(c)

In a protective order, the rule now specifically states that the court can allocate expenses for the disclosure or discovery of information. Judges have always had the authority to shift the cost of discovery, but it is now codified in the rule.

Changes to Rule 26(f)(3)

The discovery plan (26(f) report) must now specifically address any issues about preserving electronically stored information (ESI) and should also include any requests that the court enter an order under Fed. R. Evid. 502(d) if the parties agree on a procedure to assert privilege after production.

Changes to Rule 34

Under revised Rule 34(b)(2), objections to document requests must be made with specificity, and boilerplate general objections are insufficient. If a producing party is withholding documents pursuant to its objections, it must say so. The party need not create a “log” of withheld documents in the manner of a privilege log, but should state, for example, the limits that the party will place on a search for documents responsive to a request that it objects to as overbroad.

Revised Rule 34(b)(2)(B) also includes language that specifically codifies the typical practice of producing copies of documents in lieu of permitting inspection, adding that parties may “state that it will produce copies of documents or of electronically stored information instead of permitting inspection.”

Changes to Rule 37

The standard for imposing sanctions for failing to preserve ESI has changed under Rule 37(e). Under the new standard, a court may sanction a party if (1) ESI should have been preserved, (2) the party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and (3) it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery.

If the court finds that a party has prejudiced by the failure to preserve evidence, the court may only order sanctions sufficient to cure the prejudice. However, if the court finds that the party that failed to preserve acted with “intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in litigation,” it may order severe sanctions (i.e., an adverse inference or even a dismissal or default judgment against the spoliating party).

This change addresses the varying standards that courts have established in regard to sanctions, essentially adopting the rule that bad faith on the part of a spoliating party must be established for a court to order severe sanctions (compare to the Southern District of New York case law prior to these amendments that allow severe sanctions for negligent spoliation).

Other Changes

Rule 1: Amended to specifically state that parties also bear responsibility to employ the rules to “secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding” and not just the court. This change does not create a separate basis for sanctions. The Advisory Committee debated but ultimately did not include an explicit “duty to cooperate” on discovery.

Rule 4(m): Changed the time limit for service of a complaint from 120 days to 90 days.

Rule 16 (b)(3): Reduced the time to issue a Scheduling Order to the earlier of 90 days after any defendant has been served or 60 days after any defendant has appeared, and added three items to the list contents permitted in a Scheduling Order: (1) a provision regarding preservation of ESI, (2) a provision regarding any agreements under Fed. R. Evid 502, and (3) a requirement that before filing a discovery motion, the movant must request a conference with the court.

Rules 30, 31 and 33: Parallel amendments were made to these rules to reflect the proportionality considerations added to Rule 26(b)(1).

Rule 55: Amended to make clear that the court may set aside a final default judgment pursuant to the standards set forth in Rule 60(b) only.

Rule 84 and the Appendix of Forms: This rule, which provided a set of sample forms to use in federal cases, was abrogated as no longer necessary.

Conclusion

Many of these amendments are codifications of existing case law that governs discovery, but some, especially the amended Rule 37(e) and Rule 34(b)(2), represent the adoption of one approach from multiple competing lines of cases. The Advisory Committee notes that accompany the rules are instructive and helpful, especially in the areas where substantial changes have been made. Litigants who engage in discovery in federal court should be aware of these changes and adjust their practices accordingly.


[1] Amendments went into effect for Rules 1, 4, 16, 26, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, and 55. Rule 84 was abrogated. These amendments apply in civil cases filed on or after December 1, 2015 and “insofar as just and practicable” in all cases pending as of December 1, 2015. April 29, 2015 Order of the United States Supreme Court. A brief list of the amendments to Rules 1, 4, 16, 30, 31, 33, 55 and 84 is provided at the end of this article.

Supreme Court Rejects States’ Request for 30 Day Filing Extension on DACA, DAPA

On Tuesday, December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court handed the Obama administration a “small procedural victory” and refused the request of Texas and other states for a 30-day extension to file briefs in support of the lawsuit blocking the Obama administration’s immigration executive action on DACA and DAPA. Instead, the Court accepted the Justice Department’s eight day extension request. The Supreme Court will likely decide in January whether or not to hear the case this term. If the Supreme Court hears the case during the current term, the decision would likely be published in June, providing quite the fan-flaming event during the 2016 presidential election.

The lawsuit itself is related to President Obama’s executive action expanding the Deferred Action for Children and creating Deferred Action for Parents (of U.S. Citizen or permanent resident children).

On Monday, over 220 organizations filed in favor of lifting the injunction on the executive action. These groups focused on the tangible benefits of expanding DACA and implementing DAPA and left the legal arguments to the Department of Justice.

©1994-2015 Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. All Rights Reserved.

Sell-abrating Sensibly re: Social Media Campaigns

Sell-abrating Sensibly re: Social Media CampaignsThe holiday season is in full swing, which means brand owners and merchants are seizing the opportunity to capture cyber market share via social media campaigns.

While social media can be a great way to quickly generate brand buzz, you may want to take heed of the following seven tips to make sure your holiday social media campaign doesn’t turn into a big bah humbug:

  1. No Special Rules Apply – social media campaigns are not exempt from trademark infringement, false advertising, copyright, and right of publicity laws.  Do not say anything or use any images in a social media context that you wouldn’t put in print.
  2. Register company and key brand names as social media user names on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  3. Monitor social media sites for uses of confusingly similar names by third parties selling counterfeit goods, or using your trademarks in a way that creates negative publicity or a false association with your brand.
  4. Keep it Positive – Negative social media posts about a competitor often backfire, and rarely have the intended benefit of improving the poster’s own reputation.
  5. Hashtag #careful – Avoid making a social media faux pas; research and be sure you understand the meaning of viral hashtags before using them in your own social media postings.
  6. A Warning About Current Events  Avoid capitalizing on current events and/or tragedies. Instead, take time to thoroughly develop marketing campaigns that will speak to consumers regardless of timing.
  7. Not Always Sweet to Retweet – As tempting as it may be to retweet celebrities’ or politicians’ tweets, such seemingly innocuous tweets/retweets may have a polarizing effect on consumers/social media followers, or create potentially damaging false associations.

Article by Shana L. Olson & Lauriel F. Dalier of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

 © 2015 Sterne Kessler