In 2012, more than 99,000 charges of discrimination were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Of these charges, 31,208 of them alleged retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). On June 24, 2013, the United States Supreme Court issued two much-anticipated employment law rulings, both of which are beneficial to employers confronted with these charges ...
In Vance, the Supreme Court announced a narrow standard for determining which employees constitute "supervisors" for purposes of establishing vicarious liability under Title VII. In a 5-4 decision, the Court decided that a supervisor is a person authorized to take "tangible employment actions," such as hiring, firing, promoting, demoting or reassigning employees to significantly different responsibilities ...
Many employers are wary of hiring applicants with criminal records because they fear exposing themselves to potential negligent hiring or negligent supervision claims, but they also have concerns imposed by the EEOC’s aggressive interpretation of Title VII that a blanket rule against hiring persons with criminal convictions is a violation of the law ...
You’ve seen all the articles about the Supreme Court’s decision in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. and the end of DNA patents, but what does this mean outside the biotech world? It means more insight into patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. While Myriad does not affect business method and software patents, it is indicative of the general trend of the Supreme Court with respect to the threshold required to obtain a valid patent ...
It’s been well reported that the singer Rihanna has sued the UK retail chain Topshop for US$5 million in damages for the unauthorised use of her image on a t-shirt. Rihanna is apparently suing for passing-off, the argument being that people seeing the t-shirt are likely to assume that she has endorsed the brand. This may have got you wondering what the law is in South Africa on the issue of unauthorised endorsement ...
Domain names and trade marks are inextricably linked. The reason for this is simple – when a company needs to decide on a name at which it wants people to find it on the Internet, it generally opts for one of its own trade marks. As a result, the issues that crop up in trade mark disputes often crop up in domain name disputes too ...
The KZN High Court handed down a really interesting judgment in May 2013 in the case of Distell v KZN Wines & Spirits. The decision’s interesting because it not only looks at the issues that need to be considered in a trade mark infringement claim, but it also highlights the differences between trade mark infringement and passing off ...
On Friday June 14, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada released its eagerly-awaited decision, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp & Paper, Ltd., 2013 SCC 34, a case concerning random alcohol testing at a paper mill operation in Saint John, New Brunswick ...
As Panama became part of a number of industrial property related treaties, our internal laws have become more territorial; the use of a trademark is territorial again and registration becomes imperative for protection. Use as a Basis for Protection In Panama, as happens in most of the countries around the world, the right to register a trademark is acquired by its first use in commerce ...
Although we observed a increasingly widespread use of computer-based solutions in the cloud ( cloud computing ) in the information systems of companies and administrations, sometimes the obvious advantages it brings to the customer do not pay the necessary attention to the assessment of corporate risks that can generate its adoption ...
The Supreme Court’s recent decision has seeded another patent protection feather in Monsanto’s increasingly large cap, in addition to providing guidance on application of the patent exhaustion doctrine in the case of self-replicating technology. In Bowman v ...
The Federal Circuit released the results of its en banc hearing of a case involving the issue of what is patent eligible subject matter under section 101 of the Patent Act. (CLS Bank International v. Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd., F. 3d., Case No. 2011 1301 (May 9, 2013) ...
In 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set the business community atwitter when an administrative law judge in American Red Cross decided that an at-will disclaimer in an employee handbook violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by being overly broad ...
America’s high school and college students will soon be finishing another school year, and employers across the country are gearing up to welcome many of these young adults as interns for the summer. Interns are staples in many organizations and often provide valuable benefit to a business. As employers strive to keep costs down, including that of labor, many use unpaid summer help where possible ...
On February 25, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its final rule (the Final Rule) setting forth standards for health insurance issuers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Affordable Care Act). Specifically, the Final Rule outlines exchange and issuer standards related to coverage of essential health benefits, minimum value and actuarial value ...
Last month, the United States Supreme Court (Supreme Court) provided an unexpected gift to entities facing collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by holding that defendants may moot such a case by making an offer of judgment pursuant to Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This ruling could have application to the more common vehicle for multiple plaintiff claims, class actions under Rule 23, but that has yet to be tested ...
Because of recently-enacted changes to the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act, West Virginia employers will have more time to pay final wages to discharged employees. Prior to this change, the Wage Payment and Collection Act required that employers pay discharged employees within 72 hours of termination ...
1. OverviewIn accordance with theWorld Football Association’s, FIFA’s requirements, (consistent) time periodsfor the transfer of players have been established within the Union of EuropeanFootball Associations (UEFA). These time periods exist to ensure that the transferwindows of individual Football Associations coincide with each other and inturn to guarantee equal opportunities for each individual club ...
A survey by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has revealed that 47% of all UK adults now use their personal smart phone, laptop or tablet computer for work purposes - known as 'bring your own device' (BYOD).However, fewer than three in 10 users had received guidance on how to use their devices for work. This raises concerns that users may not understand how to protect the personal information accessed and stored on these devices ...
On April 24, 2013, WorkSafeBC announced the approval of new Occupational Health and Safety Workplace Bullying and Harassment Policies, which come into effect on November 1, 2013 ...
The first industrial revolution, which began in the 1750s, lasted for between 80 to 100 years. The pace of technological change today encourages us to believe that the second industrial revolution (IR2) will be completed at much greater speed. So if we take the mid-1980s as a starting point, with the emergence of optical disk technologies into consumer markets, you would expect us to be well on the way to completion, 30 years into IR2 ...
The hacker group Anonymous announced that it, in concert with Middle East- and North Africa-based criminal hackers and cyber actors, will conduct a coordinated online attack labeled “OpUSA” against banking and government websites today, May 7. Anonymous stated that OpUSA will be a distributed denial of service (DDoS) in which websites may be defaced and legitimate users may be unable to access websites ...
If your company utilizes temporary workers supplied by a staffing agency, you may be a target of OSHA. On April 29, 2013, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA, Richard Fairfax, issued a memorandum to its Regional Administrators, entitled “Protecting the Safety and Health of Temporary Workers.” Mr ...
On 2 April 2013, data protection authorities across the EU - including the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - announced that they are now investigating whether Google's privacy policy complies with national data protection laws.The investigation was prompted by allegations that Google failed to implement recommendations issued to it by the EU Working Party in October 2012 ...
