Law and Innovation

Fresh and interesting article posted on TechCrunch about the actual meaning of a startup.  Happy reading and New Year! "If you regularly read technology media, and I honestly can’t recommend it, you will run into occasional references to “startups.” Many consider startups to be small companies determined to grow quickly in the hopes of becoming the next passé giant whose corporate campus costs so much to maintain that it eventually has to stop serving chilled sake by robot on Thursdays. Everyone has their own definition of just what a startup is, and nearly everyone is wrong. But what the hell is a startup? I ask because it seems that a wide class of corporations are  regularly assigned Startup Status  that do not deserve it. Is Uber a startup? Of course not. Is the company that your crazy uncle started in the basement to help people better glue the fins on their toy rockets a startup? No, that’s a failure waiting to happen. Is the 14-person, o...

Fresh and interesting article posted  on Trademarks & Brands Online about the continuing debate on Google passive or an active role when offering its online advertising service, AdWords, service that places advertising copy at the top, bottom, or beside, the list of search results Google displays for a particular search query. Happy reading! "Being visible on the internet is crucial for many companies. The main goal is to be ranked at the top of the first page, either through natural referencing (which uses coding techniques) or sponsored links. As Google is the world’s biggest search engine, its AdWords advertisement service is at the heart of this issue and has also raised major questions concerning trademark protection. These sponsored adverts appear either on the top or the right side of the so-called natural search results. It is thought that the AdWords system is Google’s main source of revenue. This success of the advertisement platform may explain why Amazon an...

Fresh and interesting article posted on the IPKat IP Blog about the introduction in Spain of a new intellectual property legislation that will charge the free Google News service for showing snippet from  Spanish publishers  publications. As a result, Google will remove Spanish publishers from this service, and close Google News in Spain. Happy Reading! "IPKat readers will remember that last year Germany introduced an   ancillary right  that grants press publishers the exclusive right to exploit their contents commercially for one year, thus preventing search engines and news aggregators from displaying non-insignificant excerpts of newspaper articles without paying a fee.  As explained  here , the German initiative was aimed at recouping  some of the revenues that traditional news publishers have lost to the web. The underlying idea was also that news aggregators like Google News would not really boost visits to newspaper webs...

Fresh and interesting article posted on The New York Times  about the third antitrust lawsuit Apple is facing on December 2 this y: "The Apple iPod iTunes Anti-Trust Litigation". U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers is presiding over the case. Happy reading! "SAN FRANCISCO — Three years after his death, Steve Jobs is very much a presence in courtrooms across the country. And that’s not necessarily good news for Apple. In December, the company is set to go to trial in the third major antitrust lawsuit it has faced since Mr. Jobs died. His emails will play an important role in the case, as they did in the last two. But lawyers will probably have to work hard to give his statements a positive spin. The potential damages — around $350 million — are a pittance for a company that in its last quarter had an $8.5 billion profit. Executives are often told by their lawyers to be careful what they put in writing for fear it will end up as evidence in a courtroo...

Fresh and interesting article posted on IPWatchdog about the history of Apple iDevices. Happy reading!  " Early on in his career with Apple, Steve Jobs conceived the idea of a personal computing device that a person could keep with them and use to connect wirelessly to other computer services. Almost 25 years later, Apple and Jobs would upend the world of personal computing by launching the iPhone smartphone, and a few years later a tablet computer counterpart, the iPad. According to the most recent sales figures available from Apple corporate analysis website AAPLinvestors.net,   the iPhone has achieved lifetime sales of 590.5 million units ; Apple has also sold 237.2 million iPads in just over three years since the release of that product. The iPhone has retained mass appeal despite the presence of the iPad and   Apple has even reverted to soft launches for new iPad products , evidence of the incredible hold that the iPhone still maintains over Apple’s core consum...

Fresh and interesting article posted on Quinn Emanuel LLP's website providing an overview of multi-jurisdictional enforcement of judgments in U.S., UK, Russia, France, and Hong Kong. Happy reading! "With more cross-border trade and foreign investments, businesses may find themselves in more disputes with counterparties before foreign courts or in international arbitration. Where a party chooses—or the parties’ contract requires—litigation in a foreign court, it may obtain a final judgment for money damages from the foreign court. However, that court judgment may not end the dispute. The losing party (the judgment debtor) may refuse to pay on the judgment or settle the dispute at a reasonable discount in exchange for giving up appeal rights, and the prevailing party (the judgment creditor) may not have seized assets prior to the judgment. In this situation, the judgment creditor or a distressed debt fund that purchases the judgment may seek to recognize and enforce the ...