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Recently, the next big thing to come to blockchain has been unveiled, and it’s a blockchain phone. Notably, there are a few different types of blockchain phones utilizing this revolutionary technology. While one is being developed to serve as a new form of digital cold-storage crypto-wallet, another is focused on putting the power of blockchain front and center in every aspect. But whether or not lawyers will actually want to use these devices is a different question entirely....

When the Austrian student Max Schrems brought his grievances to the Irish authorities, it’s doubtful he could have foreseen this ruling by the European Court of Justice. The ECJ recently concluded that the Safe Harbor Agreement was invalid because it subordinated individuals’ privacy concerns beneath “national security, public interest or law enforcement.” Safe Harbor Principles In its ruling, the ECJ concluded that, at the very least, the European Commission too hastily approved the intercontinental agreement; it should have first made a diligent determination as to whether or not it provided adequate protection to EU citizen data....

In a trademark infringement action regarding the name of a dice game, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) there was no evidence that consumers linked the mark at issue to plaintiff, and such evidence is generally thought to be the most direct and persuasive way of establishing secondary meaning; and 2) plaintiff presented no meaningful evidence that defendant wished to capitalize on plaintiff’s mark. Read George & Co., LLC v....

The lawsuit is definitely one for the books because it appears to be the first time in history that an appeals court has found an ISP responsible for the actions of its subscribers. Getting Down to the Basics Controversy originally began when BMG’s agent Rightscorp sought to solicit the aid of Cox ISP in sending out demand letters to each of the individual infringing subscribers. The Rightscorp business model is essentially made up of sending waves of copyright email notices to alleged violators of BMG’s copyrights and demanding $20-30 settlements for each song pirated....

People always need lawyers, but in tough economic times you have to figure out which group of people need legal services and can still afford them. Problems with job retention and continued high unemployment rates make employment law one of those areas that continues to boom. Labor and employment law is one of the few areas to see consistent gains over the last 18 months, reports the ABA Journal. Knowing which clients to target is only half the battle....

The FTC has often been the public consumer protection outfit that helps people take down companies making absurd claims about their products or services. One of the more famous FTC takedowns was of L’Oreal, which had claimed that products in its Genefique and Paris Youth Code lines essentially were the keys to youth by unlocking proper gene expression. The latest company to feel the FTC’s wrath, Lumosity, settled with the federal agency to the tune of $2 million because it failed to back up its brain-training program claims with “sound, scientific research....

Zap! Pow! Bang! In a legal dust up between one of the world’s biggest superhero sidekicks and a major pop star, D.C. Comics is opposing Rihanna’s attempt to trademark her given name. In an effort to bring more product lines under her umbrella -ella -ella, the singer has filed for trademark protection for her given name, Robyn. The comic book company claims that the trademarked name could cause confusion with Batman’s sidekick, Robin....

It’s a good day to be a lawyer in the Lone Star state. On Tuesday, FindLaw launched its new Texas Statutes and Constitution section, bringing Texans the best, easiest to use Texas statutes around. So, if your client is considering moving some cattle around, we’ve got the relevant permitting laws right here. Of maybe you need to brush up on oil and gas pooling rules. Well, here ya go. Or maybe you’re just looking for Texas’s workers’ comp laws....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. (This is the world’s shortest blog article to allow you ample time to participate in our democracy on election day). Eric Sinrod (@EricSinrod on Twitter) is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris LLP, where he focuses on litigation matters of various types, including information technology and intellectual property disputes. You can read his professional biography here....

Anything goes when it comes to collecting fees because collecting fees isn’t easy, right? Well … while collecting fees isn’t easy, you surely know that anything does not go. In fact, often there are rather strict rules. Complicating matters even further is the hesitancy among attorneys to discuss fee and billing issues not just with other attorneys, but even with clients. There’s a fear that raising billing issues or problems with collecting fees will reflect poorly on the attorney or their firm, or may upset a client....

A recently published book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, received the attention of the president before it even hit the shelves. In response to a sneak peak published by New York Magazine, the book’s publisher received a cease and desist letter from Trump’s lawyers demanding the book not be released. However, the cease and desist letter, as pointed out in the response letter (which is making the rounds on the internet), was wholly without merit....

District court judgment denying a motion to suppress evidence is affirmed where the court properly ruled that the storage closet in question, although not itself within the apartment or separately specified in the warrant, was appurtenant to the apartment and therefore validly searched. Read US v. Fagan, No. 08-1787 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.Decided August 13, 2009 JudgesBefore Boudin, Selya and Dyk, Circuit Judges....

Defendants’ sentences for bank fraud and conspiracy to traffic in or use unauthorized access devices are affirmed in part where: 1) the district court did not clearly err in calculating one defendant’s intended loss as being equal to the credit limits of the credit cards she compromised; and 2) a defendant’s sentence may be enhanced where his crime recklessly jeopardizes property, even if that property survives the crime intact. However, one defendant’s sentence is vacated in part where the district court erred by enhancing his sentence four levels based on its finding that his offense had involved fifty or more victims, because only eight of the sixty-three financial institutions identified as victims by the district court suffered an actual loss....

If you’re not meeting your clients in person, then your options are limited: phone or videoconferencing. The problem with videoconferencing is the competing standards. There’s (deep breath): Skype, Facebook, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, WebEx, and more. Some are mobile-friendly, some are not. Some are great for Apple users, some are better for Windows users. Your best bet is to be familiar with all the standards, just in case your client is a die-hard adherent to single platform....

Is there ever a time when a lawyer should make a bad argument? Sure, when there is no good argument to make. Seriously, it is practically the definition of “advocacy” to take on a cause against all odds. But really seriously, there are times when you have to make bad arguments. And because we’re lawyers, we can actually make that argument. Trick of the Trade As a starting point, consider the obvservations of Jonathan Mermin in his journal article on the subject....

Facebook struck again, this time dropping $19 billion ($16bn for the company and $3bn for the company’s founders, per Wired) on WhatsApp, an insanely popular messaging app. For context the number is: $16 billion more than the rumored offer Facebook made for SnapChat, a self-destructing picture-messaging app; $18 billion more than the company paid for Instagram, a popular photo-sharing service; $6 billion less than Twitter’s price at IPO. Equal to nearly half of tech giant Yahoo’s current market capitalization; More than one-tenth of Facebook’s own market capitalization....

Lawyers, generally, have a hard time stepping away from their desks for a vacation – there’s always something urgent awaiting completion. This is doubly true for small firm and solo practices. When a BigLaw attorney steps away, there’s someone else to cover cases. Ditto for prosecutors and public defenders, assuming they’ve planned far enough in advance. If you’re a solo, or in a small firm that is stretched thin already, it might not seem worth the trouble of planning for a vacation....

In News & Observer Publ’g Co. v. Raleigh-Durham Airport Auth., the Fourth Circuit decided a First Amendment case involving a newspaper publishers’ challenge to a public airport’s total ban on newspaper racks inside its terminals. As stated in the decision: “The record reflects that travelers had trouble buying newspapers from the shops. There were instances of unavailability during the early morning, and the shops would sell out of The Herald-Sun. Furthermore, the Authority concedes that newspapers were unavailable once the shops closed each day around 9:00 p....

It’s not really news that robots will take over lawyer jobs, but it is about that time. A year ago, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that 23 percent of a lawyer’s job could be automated. As it turned out, that future is already here. Some 1.1 million legal professionals in the United States did not lose their jobs in 2017, but the traditional legal neighborhood has definitely changed since the robots started to move in....

Cook County prosecutor Sarah Naughton was arrested Saturday night after being kicked out of a store and allegedly biting a man on the sidewalk. Naughton may have taken her bulldog persona in the courtroom a bit too far, if the allegations are true. Witnesses say that the incident began with the 31-year-old Naughton and her male companion at the Taboo Tabou store in Chicago, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. If you’re not familiar with Taboo Tabou, it is a shop that specializes in sexy lingerie and kinky sex toys....