IP Law & Business recently published some background on Microsoft, its patents, and the litigation related to those patents (See my post of Nov. 11, 2005 about Microsoft’s goal to move from 2,000 to 3,000 patents applied for a year, and references cite.). The following summary of that article comes…
By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers: Legal/financial printer RR Donnelley announced that it has partnered with Tursi Law Marketing Management to create the Women in Law Empowerment Forum, to “create a dialogue for women in law on fostering leadership in [the] workplace and community.” The…
The League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust (LMCIT) coverage to its members for “litigation relating to land use regulation, development or redevelopment, franchising, or enterprise operations” even if there is no claim for damages. An “enterprise operation” means any arrangement under which the city offers goods or services for a…
As reported in the Wall St. J., May 2, 2007, at B2, around 2005 Pitney Bowes “arranged for its ‘procurement’ department to work with the legal department on managing costs.” Perhaps I read too much into it, but the verb “arranged” cloaks whether the strategic sourcing group (procurement) was thrust…
By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released its annual Lawsuit Climate study, where they ask in-house counsel to rank the states based on “how reasonable and balanced the tort liability systems is perceived to be by U.S. business.” Not…
The issue of Corp. Counsel, May 2006, announced the winner of its best-law-department contest. One reason for its victory was Ford’s policy to try as many as 100 cases annually, and typically it has won three-quarters of them. A Ford lawyer explained that “the business decision to litigate means that…
A previous post describes the return on investment of the law department of Holcim (US) (See my post of May 4, 2007.). In the article cited there, from the Mich. B.J., Jan. 2007 at 35, the company’s general counsel describes very briefly one of the objectives her team achieved. “With…
A survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers at 19 found that “nearly two thirds (65%) of the respondents perceive international arbitration to be more expensive than transnational litigation and 23% believe it is about as costly as transnational litigation.” It was unclear to me what the survey defines as international arbitration. Is it…
In the winter of 2003, ACE Group, working with the insurance broker Willis, introduced a “Contract Enforcement” Insurance Policy. As described in Transnational Dispute Mgt., Vol. 1, Feb. 2004, either side to a contract can purchase a policy at the time they sign the contract. The insurers “will review the…
By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers: It’s become clear that more and more legal work in areas such as document review is going to be outsourced. The economics are too good for routine legal work. There are a number of legal service providers set up…