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The European Unified Patent Court (UPC) – which centralizes patent litigation throughout most of the EU – is on track to go live in late 2016 or early 2017. The new UPC is expected to rival and potentially surpass US courts as the preferred venue for major patent disputes, as US companies will be able to obtain an EU-wide injunction via a single litigation, instead of having to litigate in each jurisdiction. This will drastically reduce costs and improve enforcement, but it won’t be easy. The new system and the changes in procedure and process are complex. Companies must assess multiple factors to decide in advance whether to participate or opt-out. This panel comprised of lawyers dually qualified in the US and UK will focus on how the UPC will impact IP filing and enforcement strategies of US companies, and answer questions such as: What strategic planning should US companies be doing now to prepare for the UPC?; What are the best practices to protect US companies’ patent portfolios in Europe?; What are the commercial advantages of opting-in or out of the UPC?; How will early UPC participants shape the new court system?; How do US companies decide whether to opt-in or opt-out?; How do US companies approach product clearance and FTO in Europe, particularly as applied in licensing and acquisitions?; What are the options for mitigating significant competitor patent risk before it is exacerbated by the UPC?

Appendix A to the 2012 Corporate Counsel University, Session 700- Adding Value: Strategic Planning and Demonstrating Success. It contains strategic business planning questions.

This 16 March 2016, held in Brisbane, outlines how in-house counsel can effectively managing risk in commercial contracts.

This is a sample code of business conduct and ethics policy.

Explains how corporate counsel can implement effective legal training programs as required by the U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines.

With new developments in social media, obscurity is starting to disappear. And while this may not change the world, it should change the way you think about communication.

This study explores the changing role of the general counsel by documenting its evolution and predicting the skill sets that will be required for future general counsel to be successful. Central themes to this skill set include the ability to place legal issues in a larger business context, embrace risk and make decisions, communicate with business partners in language they can relate to, and work seamlessly with the executive team and the board of directors to make productive decisions about operations and strategy, which has become increasingly global in scope. The report includes an executive summary, key findings, interview excerpts and the methodology.

Thanks to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, public companies face potential civil and criminal liability and new internal reporting obligations. Read this article to prepare your company to respond if a whistleblowing complaint comes in.

Social media can be a challenging environment for in-house counsel. In this article, in-house counsel can learn how information on social media platforms can be used ethically in their practice.

Compliance is difficult enough when a company operates in just one country. But difficulties become much greater when a company operates in many. Here are some resources for creating effective global compliance programs that support your company's business goals.

Proposal for Revising Department of Justice Attorney-Client Privilege and Work Product Doctrine Waiver Policy

This top ten shows how companies that design, manufacture, distribute, or sell consumer products are increasingly vulnerable to consumer fraud class action litigation.

IL Pro Bono Rule redline

Labor and employment laws in the United Kingdom are notoriously employee-friendly. Learn how to navigate the minefield of disciplining, and ultimately dismissing, UK employees.

This is a sample software database license agreement.

This resource is a detailed statement of corporate policies for social media usage.

Employers monitor off-site employees for numerous reasons—not simply to ensure productivity, but to protect trade secrets, avoid data breaches, track an employee’s physical location, and generally discourage or identify misconduct. Most recently, monitoring has been used for COVID-19-related contact tracing purposes. However, privacy-related legal pitfalls abound.

If the weather outside mimicked the economic outlook for corporate America, it would be overcast with periods of heavy rain. With a tough financial forecast, even tougher leadership decisions have to be made, and a layoff or reduction-in-force (RIF) may be the most feasible solution to save your bottom line. While there's no easy way to execute a RIF, this article gives insightful information to help make a layoff less painstaking and more profitable to your company.

The beginning of a shift toward a more regulatory and less litigation-oriented regime of antitrust enforcement was observable by the mid-1990s, if not earlier. The transition
toward this more bureaucratic approach by antitrust enforcement agencies is the subject of our analysis.

In the midst of all of the corporate scandals that have erupted since the Enron bankruptcy filing last year and in light of the new requirements established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, what do in-house counsel of public companies need to do both to protect their clients (the corporation, its officers, employees, and shareholders) and themselves? Read this article to get a better grasp of the scope of the problem and use the five-point compliance plan to help plan a solution.

While this paper highlights the shortfalls of Australia’s privacy law regime in light of the IoT, lawmakers should not impulsively and unnecessarily restrict these technologies.

With the advent of global privacy frameworks, and as companies collect and use more consumer data, additional importance is placed on review and compliance. The chief privacy officer is essential to addressing these priorities.

Learn how to implement comprehensive incident management program that reinforces an organization’s commitment to ethical business practices.

For over a decade, the legal field has been gradually incorporating electronic signatures into daily business operations. In-house counsel should learn the process so that implementation can be done with confidence.

By breaking down the details, in-house counsel can sensibly learn how “self-driving” cars are designed to work, and navigate future interactions with regulators and investors throughout the process.

“It’s alive!” says Dr. Frankenstein, as his monster creation opens its eyes. We all know the tale, but have you ever considered how it might impact in-house practice? Not just wearable, but implantable, computing devices may not be fantasy for long, and legal departments would be wise to consider the privacy and data protection policy that will keep employers safe as they venture into uncertainty.

The increased connectivity of people and things is creating previously unimaginable amounts of data. In this article, in-house counsel can learn how to avoid the ethical perils and pitfalls of big data.