Anderson

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules on crowdfunding became effective on May 16, 2016.  The rules are a hefty 685 pages long and are available, here .  The Investor Bulletin issued by the SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy provides an overview of the rules and the JOBS Act tailored to potential investors, here .  The Investor Bulletin explains that anyone can make a crowdfunding investment, but that there are limitations based on net worth and annual income on the amount that can be invested.  The Investor Bulletin explains:  If  either  your annual income  or  your net worth is less than $100,000, then during any 12-month period, you can invest up to the greater of either $2,000 or 5% of the lesser of your annual income or net worth. If  both  your annual income  and  your net worth are equal to or more than $100,000, then during any 12-month period, you can invest up to 10% of annual income ...

This blog recently covered Google’s Patent Purchase Program, here and here .   Google basically offered to consider purchasing submitted patents.   The Program is back, but this time expanded with a new group of players under the title, “ IP3 by Allied Security Trust .”   Here is the announcement: Calling all patent owners – some of the world’s largest companies including Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, Adobe, SAP, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia Motors, Verizon, Cisco and Arris want to buy your patents! IP3 is a marketplace that offers patent owners a quick and easy way to access the secondary market and receive fair value for their patents. For a two-week period, patent owners with great patents can submit their patents for consideration by leading multinational companies representing more than $2.5 trillion in combined enterprise value. Starting May 25, 2016, through June 8, 2016, patent owners can submit their patents to the IP3 portal at a price they set. AST will...

There's an interesting critique on the website of the Regulator Affairs Professional Society concerning the US National Institute of Health's policy of providing exclusive licenses to start up companies in a range of technologies. The author of the article refers to a lobbying group Knowledge Economy International who have complained about the lack of transparency in granting such licenses. Apparently, little is known about the terms and conditions under which the licenses are granted and some of the companies to which the licenses have been awarded appear to lack office space and indeed a website. This blogger has only had limited dealings with the NIH over the years, but has dealt extensively with other technology transfer organisations. Most are only too glad to even find one company interested in taking a license to a technology developed with public funds. It's rare that several companies compete with each other to get access to the technology. In some cases it w...

In a recent blog post , I discussed the post-mortem right of publicity in connection with the Michael Jackson and Robin Williams estates.   As has been widely publicized, Prince recently passed away with apparently little to no estate planning.   While he was supposedly a savvy musician and businessman, he was like many—likely unwilling to contemplate that he may die and, thus failed to do any estate planning.   Interestingly, the State of Minnesota (Prince’s domicile) is a state that does not have a statutory right of publicity.   Ordinarily, the right of publicity protects a person’s right to commercially exploit their likeness, name, or image.   The right of publicity is grounded in a right to protect a person’s privacy and to encourage people to develop valuable personas.   The Minnesota legislature is rushing to pass a statutory post-mortem right of publicity before the end of their legislative session (in two weeks).   The interesting que...

The front page headline in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago stated boldly “ Charity Brawl: Nonprofits Aren’t So Generous When a Name’s at Stake ” referring to the stinging criticism received by a celebrated charity for enforcing their rights over part of their name. The palaver prompted a retort from Dan Pallotta , renown philanthropist who is evangelical about the need to change the mind-set about how we see charity and for charities to change their perception of themselves (see his post in Harvard Business Review entitled “ Is it Wrong To Sue a Charity? ” and his fabulous Ted Talk here ). His post was followed by an insightful article published in Boston College Law Review by Lauren Behr entitled Trademarks for the Cure: Why Nonprofits Need Their Own Set of Trademark Rules . In short, the WSJ and its commentary illustrate the difficulties of protecting a brand name built up through sheer hard word in the philanthropic space, both from a legal and PR point of view. Without th...

The Recorder has published data and conclusions concerning a study of district court awards of attorney fees post-U.S. Supreme Court decisions Octane Fitness and Highmark .   Both Octane Fitness and Highmark concerned the availability of attorney fees.   In the United States, parties generally bear the cost of their attorney fees absent an exception.   For patent infringement, there is a statute specifically allowing for the award of attorney fees for “exceptional” cases.   The U.S. Court Appeals for the Federal Circuit interpreted that statute to require a very high standard for proving attorney fees.   Some believed that this high standard did not provide a strong enough disincentive to prevent so-called “patent trolls” from bringing weak nuisance suits for licensing fees.   In the Octane Fitness case (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s high standard and ruled that “exceptional” merely meant a case that was out of the ordinary ...

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (“Tufts Center”) has recently published a study estimating the cost of new pharmaceutical development approaching US $3 billion.  The Tufts Center at Tufts University "provides strategic information to help drug developers, regulators, and policy makers improve the quality and efficiency of pharmaceutical development, review, and utilization."  The Tufts Center notes that: The $2.558 billion figure per approved compound is based on estimated average out-of-pocket costs of $1.395 billion and time costs (expected returns that investors forego while a drug is in development) of $1.163 billion. When post-approval R&D costs of $312 million are included, the full, product lifecycle cost per approved drug, on average, rises to $2.870 billion, according to Tufts CSDD. Post-approval studies, required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a condition of approval, assess new indications, new formulations, ...