The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has released its long-anticipated final rule on patent fee adjustments (“Final Rule”). Set to take effect January 19, 2025, these changes represent the most significant fee restructuring since 2020. The changes aim to generate sufficient revenue to recover the USPTO's operational costs, while promoting efficient patent prosecution practices. Here's what patent applicants and owners need to understand about the upcoming changes ...
The European Blockchain Sandbox (the ‘Sandbox’) is a pan-European dialogue between innovators who come up with particularly interesting, original and useful applications for blockchain technology, and the relevant regulatory authorities that would be involved in such a project. The Sandbox is running from 2023 to 2026 and each year is supporting 20 use cases on the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) ...
Stay up-to-date with the ****latest developments in labour law related to employee remuneration****. These updates are essential for ensuring accurate payroll calculations, particularly in cases of employment termination, and for aligning local regulations with current legal requirements. New Minimum Wage Effective January 1, 2025, a revised minimum wage for a standard monthly work schedule will come into force ...
SyCipLaw has contributed the Philippine chapter in the latest edition of The Legal 500: International Arbitration Comparative Guide. Senior Partner and Head of Litigation Department Ricardo Ma. P.G. Ongkiko co-authored the chapter with Partners Anthony W. Dee, John Christian Joy A. Regalado, and Ma. Patricia B. Paz-Jacoba ...
Siri comes to us from her role as a private practice lawyer at Legal in Stavanger. With more than two decades of experience as a corporate lawyer, she has worked with major international entities in the oil and gas sector, including Aker Solutions, Subsea 7, Aibel, and Archer. Additionally, Siri led the contracts and legal department for Acergy’s Asia and Middle East region in Singapore for a period ...
Family offices which choose to manage their global investments from Malta have been given a new legal exemption through a recent amendment in the applicable investment services rulebook of the Malta Financial Services Authority (“MFSA”). On the 27th of November 2024, the MFSA issued a circular titled “Establishment of Single Family Offices in Malta” ...
Artificial intelligence (‘AI’) is revolutionising various industries and in today’s consumer-driven world, ensuring the safety of products is of paramount importance, more so when considering the innovative products being placed on the market. At the core of the AI Act [1] are requirements that providers, manufacturers, importers, and distributors of AI systems must meet before making an AI system available for use or distribution on the Union market ...
Crypto currencies (also known as crypto assets) have seen rapid development since Bitcoin's emergence during the financial crisis in 2008. Due to their anonymity and privacy, crypto currencies are widely used for illegal and criminal activities and serve as a tool to evade judicial accountability. In response to the increasingly frequent criminal cases involving crypto currency, Chinese governments grapple with the complexities of judicial disposal at both policy and practice levels ...
On November 7, 2024, Bill C-244, An Act to amend the Copyright Act (diagnosis, maintenance and repair)1 received royal assent, adding a new exception to the provisions governing technological protection measures (TPM) in the Copyright Act (CA). This legislative amendment adds section 41.121 to the CA, making it legal to circumvent TPMs for product maintenance, repair and diagnosis. What it means The new section 41.121 is expected to have a limited impact on the Canadian repair market ...
Carey Olsen lawyers recognised in IFLR1000 2024 Caribbean rankings Among those featured, Carey Olsen has seven individuals considered to be 'Highly Regarded', one 'Rising Star Partner', three 'Notable Practitioners' and three 'Rising Stars' ...
The new Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS2) came into effect on 18 October 2024 and with it comes an overhaul of the way in which cybersecurity risk management is regulated in Europe. In this article we cover the applicability of NIS2 to digital infrastructure providers and digital services providers (collectively “digital providers”), an expansion in scope under NIS2 that represents a major shift for the EU’s digital sector ...
SyCipLaw has shared its insights in Conventus Law's Special Report on "Navigating Business Ventures in the Philippines: Your Questions Answered." The special report, authored by Senior Partner and Corporate Services Department Head Imelda A. Manguiat and Associate Leo Francis F ...
There are more than 35 compliance companies duly registered and regulated by the Panamanian Superintendence of Non-Financial Regulated Subjects. To help eradicate from our country the crimes of corruption, tax evasion and money laundering, to improve our international image as a financial center and to get out of the grey listings of the EU and OECD, among other reasons, a new industry has been formed, generating qualified and highly specialized jobs: the regulated compliance companies ...
Metro Bank PLC was fined £16,675,200 (after a 30% discount) by the Financial Conduct Authority for failings in its transaction monitoring systems and controls. The FCA found that the bank’s failures led to the risk it was inadvertently being used for the purposes of financial crime. Key facts: Metro Bank PLC implemented an Automated Transaction Monitoring System (“ATMS”) to monitor customer transactions ...
Our final article in this series discussing different protected characteristics and the discrimination claims they give rise to, focuses on age, how employers can fall foul of the law and the steps they need to take to avoid age discrimination claims. What is age discrimination? The Equality Act 2010 prohibits both direct and indirect age discrimination, as well as age related harassment and victimisation ...
November 15, 2024 By: Artin Betpera, Christina Morgan and David Liu I. Introduction Any business operating a website needs to be aware of the proliferation of lawsuits targeting websites which use any type of customer tracking technology. While advantageous to the business in its marketing efforts, the data collection subjects the business to potential liability ...
Essential facts: state of mind and accessory liability for company directors At first instance and before the Court of Appeal, the Claimant, Lifestyle, successfully argued that the defendant company and two of its directors were jointly liable for trade mark infringement, and the directors had been ordered to account for profits made by them in connection with the company's infringements ...
The question of who bears the loss suffered as a result of a business email compromise was answered by the Western Cape division of the High Court in the recent judgment ofGripper & Company (Pty) Ltd v Ganedhi Trading Enterprises CC. Background Facts Gripper & Company (Pty) Limited (“Gripper”) and Ganedhi Trading Enterprises CC (“Ganedhi”) have been dealing with each other since 2014 ...
Since 2009, Christian Bohne has assisted companies and banks with corporate legal advice. He has specialised expertise in insolvency and restructuring and is regularly appointed as an estate administrator and restructuring agent by Agder District Court. Christian advises companies facing financial difficulties, banks handling defaulted engagements, as well as creditors, shareholders, and boards on liability issues. Christian has 11 years of experience as a lawyer at Kvale Law Firm in Oslo ...
Chapter 647 of the Laws of Malta, titled the Markets In Crypto-Assets Act (hereinafter referred to as “Chapter 647”), integrates all aspects of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and Council on markets in crypto-assets (“MiCAR”) ...
The new Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS2) came into effect on 18 October 2024 and with it comes an overhaul of the way in which cybersecurity risk management is regulated in Europe. Given that cloud-based architecture is now considered the industry-norm, data centres have become the custodians of the vast majority of our digital economy and form a core aspect of any critical infrastructure or service ...
What are single-use vapes and why are they being banned? Single-use vapes are vapes which are not designed or intended to be re-used and are not refillable and/or not rechargeable. They are being banned for both health reasons and environmental reasons. As regards the environmental reasons, they pose a major waste problem in the UK, as they are often thrown away in general waste or littered, instead of being recycled ...
Businesses involved in, or contemplating litigation are advised to give serious consideration to ADR from the outset of a dispute as well as during the lifecycle of a claim. For those parties who relish their day in Court and pay lip service to alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”), the recent amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules (“CPR”) will make life harder for those parties as the Courts now have the power to order parties to engage in ADR ...
In October of 2024, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) announced it had received two Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests to disclose EEO-1 Type 2 Consolidated Report data, which is filed annually by prime federal government contractors and first tier sub-contractors. The Type 2 report is one of the annual filings required for multiple-establishment covered contractors. The report includes demographic data for all U.S ...
On October 11, 2024, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) published a final rule implementing its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, which is designed to verify that defense contractors are adequately protecting sensitive information from cybersecurity threats. The CMMC applies to contractors who process, store, or transmit Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or Federal Contract Information (FCI), which is most DOD contractors ...