IP Legislation
Passage of Defend Trade Secrets Act Provides Silicon Valley Companies New Trade Secret Enforcement Tools
When Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act last week, legislators significantly expanded the tools available to Silicon Valley companies for addressing acts of trade secret misappropriation. Previously, trade secrets law had been largely a matter of state law, and U.S. companies seeking to file a claim for trade secrets misappropriation had been limited to…
Read MoreSOPA Blackout Protesters Succeed in Tabling SOPA and PIPA Bills; Focus Shifts to OPEN Act
To follow up on my blog posting about the SOPA blackout, the SOPA blackout protesters achieved their desired result: SOPA and its companion bill PIPA were tabled after its co-sponsors withdrew their support of the bills, as the L.A. Times reported. The focus of Congress will now shift to consideration of the Online Protection and…
Read MoreSilicon Valley Prepares for SOPA Blackout Day Observation
The Silicon Valley cyberspace community is currently preparing for tomorrow’s observation of SOPA Blackout Day. Organizers are requesting that participants make their websites go black for at least 12 hours tomorrow in observation of the blackout. As I reported on the Silicon Valley Software Law Blog, Mozilla, Reddit, Word Press, Boing Boing and the English…
Read MoreGenetic Engineering & Biotechnology News Interviews Kristie Prinz on Patent Reform
To follow up on our coverage of the patent reform debate which has been revived in Congress, I wanted to share with you an interview I gave with Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News earlier this month on the patent reform issue. The article explored the competing interests of the biotechnology and high tech industries on…
Read MoreCopyright Reform: Is it Time to Take Patent Reform Off the Table and Work on Copyright Reform?
Given where we are on the patent reform debate, is it time to move patent reform off the table and work on copyright reform? If you haven’t heard many calls for this lately, you are not alone, but according to Wired, Judge Miriam Hall Patel, who presided over the Napster case has had time to…
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