Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert Blog

New York Court of Appeals Upholds Municipal Authority to Ban Fracking

Posted in Environmental and Green Issues

On July 8, 2014

New York’s highest court dealt a blow to the hydrofracking industry on June 30 when it upheld, in a consolidated opinion in Matter of Wallach v. Town of Dryden and Cooperstown Holstein Corp. v. Town of Middlefield, the authority of municipalities to use their zoning powers to ban hydrofracking. The Court of Appeals held that provisions on the towns’ zoning ordinances that prohibited hydrofracking anywhere within their borders were not preempted by the “supersession clause” of the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML). That clause, said the Court, prevents municipalities from regulating the “how” of hydrofracking but does not bar them from limiting “where” it can take place.

Wrap Up of United States Supreme Court’s 2013-2014 Term

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in General Litigation

On July 7, 2014

With the close of the United States Supreme Court’s 2013-14 term, we offer this wrap-up of the Court’s term, focusing on the Court’s most important business and commercial cases (excluding intellectual property opinions): Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund: The Court upheld the fraud-on-the-market theory first set forth in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, which allows investors to satisfy the reliance element of a section 10b-5 securities fraud claim by invoking a presumption that the price at which stock is purchased in an efficient market reflects all public, material information — including material misstatements.

Halliburton Gives Defense Bar New Tool to Defeat Class Certification

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Class Action Defense

On July 7, 2014

The Supreme Court has raised the class certification stakes yet again, holding in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund that defendants in securities class actions may rebut the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance at the class certification stage. Over the objections of Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito, the Court declined to toss out the presumption altogether.

Gibbons Director John Romeo Named a Top Employment Attorney by Human Resource Executive Magazine

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Labor

On July 1, 2014

Human Resource Executive® magazine has featured John C. Romeo, a Director in the Employment & Labor Law Department at Gibbons P.C., on its list of the “Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys,” in the “Up-and-Comers” category. This is the seventh edition of the “Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys,” a collaboration between Human Resource Executive® and Lawdragon, a media company that has issued “best of” lawyer lists since 1989. This guide is intended to offer corporate counsel and human resource professionals a guide to finding lawyers who can help resolve difficult employment situations and comply with workplace-related laws and regulations. This year’s list of 210 employment lawyers featured 40 up-and-comers (who have been in practice for less than 20 years) recommended by corporate counsel.

PTAB Decides First Pharma IPR

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Patent

On July 1, 2014

Last week, in what appeared to be one of the first pharmaceutical based cases brought to a decision under the IPR regime, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) of the US Patent and Trademark Office held that the majority of claims in a series of vitamin supplement patents were invalid. This decision turns the welcoming lights on for the generic drug industry to utilize the inter partes review (IPR) procedures under the America Invents Act to challenge proprietary pharmaceutical patents. In this matter, the challenger Gnosis, a defendant in an infringement action brought by Merck & Cie, South Alabama Medical Science Foundation and Parmlab, which was stayed pending the IPR decision, successfully defended against the four patents in issue: United States Patent Nos. 5,997,915, 6,011,040, 6,673,381 and 7,172,778 which are directed to compositions and methods of use involving chiral reduced natural folate compounds used as food supplements to prevent or treat folate deficiency diseases.

Recent D.N.J. Opinion Offers Roadmap to Practitioners Defending Antitrust Claims

by Kevin R. Reich

Posted in Antitrust

On June 30, 2014

A recent opinion from the District of New Jersey illustrates the breadth of defenses available to an entity accused of violating the antitrust laws. World Phone Internet Services, Pvt. Ltd., a provider of VoIP services in India, and its majority shareholder, TI Investment Services, LLC, sued Microsoft (owner of Skype), alleging that Microsoft’s intentional failure to abide by the requirements of India’s licensing regime for VoIP service providers allowed it to undercut World Phone’s pricing, which advantage Microsoft supposedly used to quash its competitors. In granting Microsoft’s motion to dismiss the complaint in TI Investment Services, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., the Court relied on four independent grounds to decide that plaintiffs’ claims of monopolization and collusion did not pass muster under the Sherman Act.

Supreme Court Finds President’s NLRB “Recess” Appointments Unconstitutional

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Labor

On June 30, 2014

On June 26, 2014, in NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously decided that President Obama’s purported “recess” appointments of National Labor Relations Board members on January 4, 2012 violated the Constitution because the Senate was not on a break of “sufficient length” when the President appointed them, and thus the President could not dispense with Senate consent of the appointments. The decision calls into question hundreds of NLRB rulings between January 4, 2012 and August 7, 2013, when a new Board was finally sworn in with Senate approval of the President’s appointments. Those rulings include numerous pro-union decisions dealing with dues checkoff clauses, confidentiality policies and practices, employee social media activities, conduct during bargaining unit elections and workplace investigations. More globally, the decision ends an arduous debate as to the meaning of the words “[v]acancies that may happen during the Recess” in the Constitution’s Recess Appointments Clause.

USPTO Implements Test for Patent Eligible Subject Matter Under §101 Following the Supreme Court’s Alice Decision

by Robert E. Rudnick and Charles H. Chevalier

Posted in Patent

On June 30, 2014

We recently discussed the Supreme Court’s test for patentable subject matter under section 101 in Alice Corp. Pty v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. ___ (2014). In its opinion, the Court applied the two-step process set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. __ (2102); (i) whether the claims are directed to patent-ineligible matter (e.g., abstract idea) and (ii) whether the claims contain an inventive concept (e.g., “additional features to ensure that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the abstract idea.”).

Aereo “Performs Publicly” and Therefore Illegally

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Copyright

On June 26, 2014

We have previously posted our analysis of the oral arguments held before the Supreme Court in American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et al., v. Aereo, Inc., No. 12-451, this past April. On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court announced its decision in the case, holding that Aereo performs the television broadcasting companies’ copyrighted works publicly through the function of their service/system within the meaning of the Transmit Clause of the Copyright Act of 1976. The Court tried to carefully limit its holding to only the facts particular to Aereo’s system in order to avoid precluding the development of “cloud computing,” a still burgeoning field of technological and economical promise.

EEOC Issues Guidance Regarding Religious Dress and Grooming Practices

by Gibbons P.C.

Posted in Discrimination

On June 26, 2014

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) — the federal agency responsible for the enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws — recently issued guidance on religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), specifically focusing on religious dress and grooming practices. The publication, entitled “Religious Garb and Grooming in the Workplace: Rights and Responsibilities,” along with its accompanying Fact Sheet, are designed to assist employers to comply with their legal responsibilities under Title VII.