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On March 15, 2022, President Biden signed an omnibus spending package for the upcoming fiscal year. Included in its nearly 3,000 pages is a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). As reauthorized, VAWA includes numerous safeguards to protect women and other victims of gender violence nationwide ...

Hunting Titan, Inc. v. DynaEnergetics Europe GMBH, Appeal Nos. 2020-2163, -2191 (Fed. Cir. March 24, 2022) In a notable review of the USPTO’s new Precedential Opinions Panel, the Federal Circuit discussed the circumstances under which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board should raise a ground of unpatentability against substitute proposed claims in a motion to amend that a petitioner has not advanced or insufficiently developed ...

CRF Payments to ANCs and Their Shareholders Are Not Taxable On January 21, 2022, the Department of the Treasury held a consultation with Alaska Native Corporations on the federal income tax consequences of Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) distributions made to Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) and to Alaska Native Corporation shareholders ...

As a business owner, you know how much goes into creating strategies and plans for long-term success. Creating a well-executed succession plan that identifies and develops future company leaders that may include transferring ownership to them, ensures that the business you have built continues to grow. Here are some things to consider when developing a succession plan ...

By Aukjen Ingraham ·  Listen to articleBoth in-house counsel and law firms face an acute problem today: It's difficult for attorneys to gain trial experience or to hire other attorneys who have that experience. Fewer cases are being tried, and the cases that are tried are riskier, creating a challenging environment for those who want to gain more courtroom experience ...

As much of Oregon faces another year of drought, water experts say farmers and ranchers should be aware of all the tools available to them under the state's water rights laws. At a seminar Tuesday, Elizabeth Howard, Oregon water law attorney, and Lindsay Thane, natural resources attorney, both of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, spoke about nine tools for farmers through the state Water Resources Department, or OWRD ...

The Portland Business Journal has now ranked the region's law firms by the diversity on their professionals for six years based on our annual survey for The List of law firms. We've refined the methodology again this year to improve the ranking. Beyond just ranking firms by percentages of women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) and LGBTQIA+ lawyers and partners, we indexed them against the percentage of female (50 ...

Genuine Enabling Technology LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., Appeal No. 2020-2167 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 1, 2022) The Federal Circuit’s only precedential patent opinion this week turned on issues of claim construction.  In particular, the issue was the effect of statements made by the applicant during the patent’s prosecution.  The Court held that the district court erred in applying too narrow a construction, and reversed with a modified construction ...

On April 1, 2022, the Alaska Supreme Court issued Borer v. The Eyak Corporation, which may impact Alaska Native Corporation boards of directors and their corporate governance structures and policies. Courts only resolve disputes between parties that are ripe—generally that means that the party bringing the ‎lawsuit alleges it has already been injured or restricted in some meaningful way ...

On March 30, 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in Oertwich v. Traditional Village Of Togiak, No. 19-36029 (9th Cir.) that has potential implications for tribal sovereign immunity, including recognizing that tribal sovereign immunity extends to tortious conduct occurring on non-tribal lands.  Ronald Oertwich (“Oertwich”) was a non-tribal member living in the City of Togiak, Alaska (the “City”) ...

For more than a century, since Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), the Supreme Court has recognized that when the United States establishes a Native reservation, it impliedly reserves sufficient water rights to support that reservation. But many of these Winters rights, like those held by the Navajo Nation, remain unadjudicated and unquantified, creating uncertainty for junior right holders ...

On Thursday, April 7, 2022, in Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden, No. 22-400-43, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal district court’s nationwide injunction barring implementation of Executive Order 14043, which mandates COVID-19 vaccination for all executive branch employees, subject to medical and religious exceptions ...

Littelfuse, Inc. v. Mersen USA EP Corp., Appeal No. 2021-2013 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 4, 2022)‎ Our Case of the Week focuses on the issue of claim construction, and, more specifically, the doctrine ‎of claim differentiation. ‎ The patent at issue was directed to a “fuse end cap for providing an electrical connection between a ‎fuse and an electrical conductor ...

Gov. Kate Brown on March 10, 2020 issued Executive Order 20-04, which directs state agencies to take actions to reduce and regulate greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Oregon Legislature’s goal of achieving greenhouse gas levels at least 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 ...

Niazi Licensing Corporation v. St. Jude Medical SC, Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1864 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 11, 2022) The Federal Circuit’s only precedential patent decision this week comes on appeal from a district court decision finding invalidity, granting summary judgment of no induced infringement, and imposing sanctions pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 ...

Apple Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1760 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2022) In its only precedential patent case this week, the Federal Circuit addressed the extent to which a party exposes itself to personal jurisdiction for a declaratory judgment action when it accuses a party of patent infringement in that forum ...

Effective May 9, 2022, Native tribes, workers, and businesses may face fewer hurdles when competing for federal construction projects due to several revisions the Department of the Interior has published to its Department of the Interior Acquisition Regulations (DIAR), codified at 48 CFR parts 1401-1499, to better comply with the Buy Indian Act and policies from the Biden Administration ...

Sunoco Partners Marketing & Terminals L.P. v. U.S. Venture, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2020-1640, -1641 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 29, 2022) Our case of the week has a little bit for everyone, including lost profits, reasonable royalties, enhanced damages, claim construction, and more.  However, the primary issue was application of the experimental use exception to the on-sale bar.  The experimental use exception, which traces to City of Elizabeth v. Am. Nicholson Pavement Co., 97 U.S ...

Governor Inslee’s March 24, 2022 signing of House Bill 1329 marks the introduction of changes to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), the focus of which concerns public meetings’ accessibility and participation in the same. While the majority of these changes take effect at the fast approaching date of June 9, 2022, the Governor’s signing immediately implemented others ...

Governor Inslee’s March 24, 2022 signing of House Bill 1329 marks the introduction of changes to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), the focus of which concerns public meetings’ accessibility and participation in the same. While the majority of these changes take effect at the fast approaching date of June 9, 2022, the Governor’s signing immediately implemented others ...

In April 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14026 to increase the minimum wage for federal government contractors to $15 per hour. On November 23, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued its final rule implementing Executive Order 14026. The rule requires any federal “contractor” to pay employees a minimum hourly wage of $15 and overtime wages for work beyond 40 hours per week. This wage is subject to yearly increases determined by DOL ...

“Another game changer!” — Your takeaway from reading this summary of Washington’s Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1795, commonly known as the “Silenced No More Act,” which becomes law June 9, 2022, and has some important retroactive effects ...

On February 4, 2022, President Biden issued Executive Order 14063, which requires federal agencies engaging in “large scale” federal construction contracts to include in their solicitation and construction contracts a provision requiring the prime federal contractor (and their subcontractors) to negotiate project labor agreements (PLAs) with local unions as a condition of receiving the contract ...

While architects and engineers take responsibility for the safety of the buildings they ‎design, they usually are not responsible for protecting the property or the people on-site during ‎construction. If a finished building falls because of improper design, the architects and engineers ‎who stamped the drawings will be the prime suspects for the failure ...

The Oregon Legislature adopted a bill in 2021 to ensure planned communities eliminate discriminatory language from their governing documents by the end of this year. House Bill 2534, which amends Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) chapters 94 and 100, imposes a responsibility on homeowners associations and condominium associations to review their governing documents and remove certain discriminatory language ...

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