Category Archives: General
Implicitly Waiving Contract Rights
American contract law has a complex relationship with formalities, such as signatures and notarization. One the one hand, people use these formalities all the time. When most people think of a contract, they think of a long legal document with a signature page at the end. These formalities are important because they are evidence… Read More »
Why Do We Have Intellectual Property?
Over the past several years, intellectual property (IP) has become a much more fashionable topic to discuss. Copyright and its effects on the internet and the rise in patent trolls have made it into the mainstream media. Even trademark law shows up more and more often, especially around this time of year. The NFL’s… Read More »
Specific Performance and Contract Law
The most common remedy that people receive when suing over a contract are damages, money paid by the defendant in order to compensate them for some harm. However, sometimes that payment is not what people really want. After all, the parties entered into the contract with specific obligations, and sometimes plaintiffs would rather see… Read More »
Michael Pike Featured in Today’s Daily Business Review Top Rated Lawyers Section
Managing Partner Michael Pike of Pike and Lustig, LLP in West Palm Beach is featured in today’s Daily Business Review under the “2015 Top Rated Lawyers” section!
Daniel Lustig, named “Attorney to Watch” in 2015
Congratulations to Daniel Lustig, Partner at Pike & Lustig, LLP in West Palm Beach, for being named as an “Attorney To Watch in 2015″ by Attorney At Law Magazine! Pick up an issue where he can be found on the cover and you can read his story on page 17.
Keeping Trademarks Covered: Avoiding Naked Licenses
Trademarks are commonly referred to as “source-identifiers.” They are logos or words that tell consumers where the good or service that they are purchasing comes from. This makes trademark licensing a bit of an unusual problem. After all, if the point of the mark is to tell consumers who makes a product, would it… Read More »
The Costs of Dialing a Wrong Number
Dialing a wrong number is a fact of life for most people, but a company calling the wrong person using an autodialer can face serious penalties. This is the result of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which lets consumers sue companies calling them without consent for $500 a call. In fact, Florida citizens… Read More »
Functionality: The Line between Patents and Trademarks
Each category of intellectual property deals with a specific type of creation. Copyright protects artistic expression. Patents protect useful inventions and discoveries. Trademarks protect logos and other things that convey the source of commercial goods. The legislature specially tailored each of these classes of intellectual property to suit the type of creation that it… Read More »
Contract Damages: How Much Can You Agree To?
American law has a fairly robust respect for people’s freedom to contract, especially in cases where both sides are of equal bargaining power and sophistication. However, there are certain clauses that the law refuses to enforce either to protect society or to protect one of the parties to the contract. One area where this… Read More »
Place Names and Trademarks
Trademark law, like all intellectual property law, has to be balanced to serve two competing goals. On the one hand, giving companies’ trademarks legal protections helps protect customers by making sure they are buying from the company that they think they are. On the other hand, giving too much power to the protection of… Read More »
Tortious Interference Claims in Florida
Economic competition is at the heart of the American economy. The idea is that by competing with each other, businesses produce better, cheaper goods and services for the consumer. However, this type of economic competition is not a free for all. There are rules. One particular rule is that competitors are not allowed to… Read More »
How Attorney-Client Privilege Works for Companies
Honesty between attorneys and clients is of paramount importance. If clients cannot tell the absolute truth to their attorneys, then they risk their lawyer having to deal with nasty surprises at trial. One way the law facilitates candid discussions between attorneys and their clients is with the attorney-client privilege. This privilege creates a veil… Read More »
The Parody Defense to Trademark Infringement
Finding the boundaries of a piece of intellectual property is always much harder than finding the boundaries of a piece of real property. Real property has fences and walls and markers. Intellectual property only has legal doctrines. One of the places this problem appears most is with the parody defense to trademark infringement. The… Read More »
Understanding Florida’s New Data Breach Law
As more and more commerce starts to move online, companies are continuing to store ever greater amounts of customer and employee information in digital form. While this setup is often more convenient for everyone involved, it also creates a new potential liability for businesses who store this sort of information: data breaches. The possibility… Read More »
Understanding Statutory Damages
While some people sue for the principle of having their day in court, many do so because they have been harmed in some way and deserve compensation for that harm. That compensation is known as the damages. Ordinarily, judges or juries award damages based on the actual, quantifiable harms that someone has suffered. However,… Read More »
Enforcing Non-Compete Agreements
Employees are an important part of any business, and they are necessary to the company’s smooth operation. Businesses want to attract the best and the brightest, knowing that they will reap the rewards of employing competent people. However, this presents them with a problem. How should a company handle an employee who wants to… Read More »
Cybersquatting and Generic Top-Level Domains
A company’s web presence has become increasingly important over the past decade, and that trend shows no sign of letting up. In order to help businesses advertise their services more effectively online, the organization that controls internet traffic, ICANN, is beginning to release new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). gTLDs are the end portion of… Read More »
Florida Supreme Court Gives School the Right to Enforce Its Trademark
Who gets to sue someone when an injury occurs? This seemingly simple question has actually given rise to a fairly complex area of the law known as standing. Fundamentally, the standing doctrine is designed to make sure that the people suing for an injury are actually the people who were harmed. For instance, courts… Read More »
Understanding Arbitration and Mediation
Alternative dispute resolution is a trendy new phrase that is becoming more and more popular as companies start paying attention to the rising costs of litigation. The idea behind alternative dispute resolution is that parties can use methods besides litigation to settle their differences. Two of the most common methods of alternative dispute resolution… Read More »
Interrogating a Company
Discovery can often be the longest and most expensive portion of a lawsuit, especially when dealing with commercial litigation. The idea behind discovery is that it allows attorneys to get information from the other side to help build their cases. One of the most powerful discovery tools that a lawyer has is the deposition,… Read More »