In the News Archive

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided in Matal v. Tam that the federal government’s ban on offensive-trademark registrations violates the First Amendment. Here, attorneys tell Law360 why the decision is significant.

Ron Abramson, Lewis Baach PLLC.  “In today’s decision, there was no dissent from any side of the spectrum. The differences in the bases for the separate opinions of the justices
were nuanced, going to whether it was necessary to address additional questions such as whether registered trademarks represent government of private speech. One group said it was private speech — and thus highly protected — and a second group said it didn’t matter because this type of censorship would be prohibited under either standard. There will surely be a rash of fringe, and truly offensive, trademark filings as a result of this decision. However, none of them will likely ever be major brands, thus the issue should not have great practical significance.”

“This ruling will affect industries across the board,” said Ronald Abramson, a partner in the law firm of Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss PLLC.  The decision is important not just for its economic impact, but because of its effects on patent law. “This is the first time in a long time that an authoritative court has distinguished patent rights from contract rights and said that you can’t make up your own contract rights to affect patent rights,” said Abramson. “This breathes some new life into restraints on alienation, which have been ignored by the Federal Circuit for the last 25 years. It also opens up the door to antitrust and patent misuse, [two other legal limits on patentees] which have withered under the Federal Circuit.”

En Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss asesoran a clientes internacionales en litigios también internacionales, investigaciones y compliance. "Nuestra práctica trasciende las fronteras de los Estados Unidos permanentemente. En mi caso, me dedico a asesorar clientes latinoamericanos respecto de sus necesidades legales en los Estados Unidos", dice Cristian Francos, socio de la firma y su cara en la Argentina.

It would not be out of the ordinary, then, for a VEB official to have brief courtesy meetings with New York bankers about continuing business, though they would not be allowed to discuss new bond deals, said Aaron Wolfson, a partner at Lewis Baach who previously worked at JPMorgan and prosecuted banks for skirting sanctions.

Ron Abramson, partner at law firm Lewis Baach, said the decision represents “a complete and harsh slap down for the Federal Circuit, at long-last rejecting the Federal Circuit’s long questioned 1992 decision in Mallinckrodt v Medipart, which held that a contractual reservation of rights could overcome the rule of exhaustion by prior sale that applies to the patent property right.”

He added: “I am a bit surprised to see that the court also went eight to nothing for ‘full monte’ exhaustion—upholding not only domestic patent exhaustion as widely expected, but applying the same rule to foreign sales as well, despite the fact that foreign patents under which the latter sales occurred are entirely separate from any corresponding US patents.”

Lewis Baach’s Ron Abramson said the verdict represents a “complete and harsh slapdown” for the CAFC.  “At long-last”, the court rejected the CAFC’s “long questioned 1992 decision in Mallinckrodt v Medipart, which held that a contractual reservation of rights could overcome the rule of exhaustion by prior sale that applies to the patent property right,” he explained.  “The holding will loosen manufacturers’ control over ‘refillable’ products, as well as the ability to control importation of products sold abroad by threat of patent infringement.” He added, “It also removes a large cloud on commercial freedom of sale perpetuated by the Federal Circuit since its controversial Mallinckrodt decision 25 years ago.”

Manuel Varela, natural de Domaio, es abogado en un bufete en Washington que lleva la denuncia de la familia propietaria del banco, intervenido tras un informe del FinCEN americano

Ron Abramson, partner at Lewis Baach, explained its meaning: “Under this ruling, the controlling statute on patent venue is the narrower provision of Section 1400(b), whose meaning is not impacted by the broader provision in the general venue provisions of 35 USC 1391(c). “There will now be fewer places to bring a patent infringement lawsuit, to be sure.”

Eric Lewis of Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss writes: Good lawyers don't get stuck in boxes. They are problem solvers who bring judgment and experience to their clients' issues, whoever those clients may be. They try to prevent economic interests from affecting their service to clients. They earn trust. Satisfaction in the law can be, and should be, measured in more than one way.

On April 18, 2017, the International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia (“IIROSA”) launched a major humanitarian distribution of food and other necessities in refugee camps in Juba, South Sudan to alleviate the plight of the South Sudanese affected by the famine. The distribution of the approximately $250,000 worth of much needed aid from IIROSA – including food items such as flour, sugar, corn, oil, and dried milk, as well as other basic goods – was made in conjunction with the South Sudanese Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and a local charity partner.

Asked whether there was any chance the bill could be enacted, Elizabeth Marvin, a Washington-based lawyer with Lewis Baach, told IBTimes UK: "there's a very slim chance... they certainly could enact it but it would be challenged and in light of the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges it would be struck down as unconstitutional."

"The federal courts are pretty jealous about their jurisdiction, and Article III standing is a brick
wall," said Ronald Abramson of Lewis Baach PLLC.

Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss represents Al Jazeera's Ahmad Zeidan and independent correspondent Bilal Kareem in an action challenging their inclusion on the United States’ “Kill List.”  Kate Toomey explains the case in an audio interview.

Elizabeth Marvin, a partner with Lewis Baach in Washington DC, told IBTimes UK: "In my practice, I came to learn pretty quickly that neither side really feels like they win usually when a case is settled".  According to Marvin, the repeal isn't doing anything for North Carolina's LGBT communities: "What the repeal did was basically return the state to pre-HB2."

The men’s lawyer, Jeffrey D. Robinson, said that they should be given the right to contest their inclusion on any list that could get them killed.  “Before the state applies its power in force to lead to my death, give me an opportunity to show that you got the wrong person,” said Mr. Robinson.

Jeff Robinson comments to Politico on new litigation filed by Lewis Baach on behalf of two journalists against the Trump administration.    The new suit contends that plaintiffs Zaidan and Kareem have been mistakenly included on the U.S. “kill list.” And must have a mechanism to challenge their status. "This is a very deliberate process that needs to give some access to people who deny they should be included," Robinson said.

“The transgender community is certainly in limbo, which is difficult because the community has been highlighted and sort of brought to the surface in recent months,” said Lewis Baach PLLC partner Elizabeth Marvin. “A lot of attention has been placed on them, and there are no specific protections for them.”

Beginning April 1, 2017, Lewis Baach will operate worldwide under the name Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss.  

However, Lewis Baach’s Ronald Abramson called the ruling ‘concerning’.  "In my view, by extending copyright protection to these designs, the court has broken a key limitation on copyright protection, and this will come back to haunt the courts in very troublesome
ways, not only in the fashion industry, but in other areas, such as architecture and computer
software, where design and functionality are often intertwined and the designs can be highly 'free form'.”  He added, “Businesses in those fields will now start asserting these ‘copyrights’ very aggressively, in ways that were never intended by the Copyright Act. Note also that the law also provides for design patents, a form of IP specifically created for designs of useful articles.  However, design patents have a relatively short term of 15 years. Copyrights, by contrast, typically have a 100-year term. The result here is very concerning.”

Ronald Abramson, an IP litigator with Lewis Baach PLLC, New York, was critical of the ruling,
saying the “Supreme Court just did what Congress would not: extend copyright protection to clothing designs.” Abramson told Bloomberg BNA in an email message that the ruling “has broken a key limitation on copyright protection, and this will come back to haunt the courts” in areas like architecture and computer software, “where design and functionality are often intertwined and the designs can be highly ‘free form.’”

Lewis Baach's Ron Abramson said the verdict illustrates SCOTUS’ “disinclination to have ‘special rules’ for patent law that widely diverge from the resolution of analogous questions in related legal fields.”  He added, “What the decision does do is cut way back on a defence that occasionally allows a patent infringement defendant to escape liability for damages. Due to the infrequency that this defence prevailed, I would say this decision will not have a monumental impact.”

The impact of the decision will be limited because laches was rarely asserted in patent cases and was even more rarely successful, said Ron Abramson, a partner with Lewis Baach.  "The decision was widely expected and again illustrates the Supreme Court’s disinclination to have `special rules' for patent law that widely diverge from the resolution of analogous questions in related legal fields," Abramson said in an e-mailed analysis.

Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C., said that whether Title IX encompasses gender identity discrimination "could potentially have an impact on employers, because it would require the [Suprerme] Court to consider whether Title IX's prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex includes gender identity," should the issue again reach the Supreme Court. "A decision that 'sex' as used in Title IX encompasses gender identity would effectively expand the definition of 'sex' as used in other statutes, such as Title VII."

Lewis Baach’s Ron Abramson said SCOTUS had “cut off” an argument that could have expand US patent jurisdiction beyond reason.  “Everyone on the court agrees that there has to be more than one US component under the provision in question [to infringe]… the decision does straighten out an area where the lower court had pushed US law too far,” Abramson said.

Ron Abramson, partner at Lewis Baach, agreed with Dragseth that the ruling raises questions.  “I’m not sure I buy the fine points of the court’s statutory construction reasoning, and I see many open questions raised by this decision.  However, the big point here is that the Supreme Court has, quite properly in my view, cut off an argument that could have expanded US patent jurisdiction beyond reason by an exporter who did nothing more with respect to the US than supply a commodity component that is later used in making some further product abroad, where only the final product would have infringed had it
been made in the US.”

Critical of the judgement, Ron Abramson, partner at Lewis Baach, was unsure whether he “buys the fine points of the court’s statutory construction reasoning” and sees “many open questions raised by this decision.” [...]

Manuel Varela and Cristián Francos were interviewed by AUNO legal magazine on Litigation Funding

Manuel Varela y Cristián Francos fueron entrevistados por la revista legal AUNO respecto del financiamiento de litigios

Lewis Baach is pleased to announce the release of “Getting the Deal Through:  Litigation Funding 2017,” which offers the first comprehensive overview of the laws and regulations governing litigation funding on a country-by-country basis. Lewis Baach attorneys David Liston, Alex Patchen and Tara Plochocki authored the chapter on the United States.

A host of likely legal challenges will confront Middle East related entities doing business in or with the United States under President Trump, write Waleed Nassar and Kate Toomey.

As the market continues to pound out a separation between the niche players and the global elites, major legal consumers are increasingly turning to boutique firms for some of their more challenging work. Between their dexterity, fee flexibility, and, depending on the size of the boutique, deeper resources, we are seeing a growing interest in boutiques and niche firms in the legal market.

Complaints brought by employees belonging to what is traditionally the majority group should be taken as seriously as complaints brought by employees belonging to historically disadvantaged groups, noted Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

“This is a really important action for this court,” Ali Jaber’s attorney Jeffrey Robinson said to the D.C. Circuit’s three-judge panel Tuesday morning.

Robinson called on the court to decide whether it will be held hostage to the political-question doctrine that prevents courts from interfering in executive policymaking – one of the primary reasons cited by U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle for dismissing the lawsuit back in March.

On Monday, Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clarifying subsection 1 of the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §1344, in Shaw v. United States. Notwithstanding a veritable ocean of case law, regulations and statutes that delineate the difference between a bank’s property and that of its customers, the court quickly pushed such technical arguments to the side, holding that — for the purposes of the bank fraud statute — there is no practical difference between targeting a bank customer’s funds and targeting the bank’s own funds.

For the first time ever, the victim of an apparent U.S. drone strike got a hearing in a U.S. court. 

“The court’s decision is in keeping with the long-standing principle that a fraud can be prosecuted under the criminal law even if the victim does not suffer a loss — which is an important distinction between criminal fraud and civil fraud,” said A. Katherine Toomey, a partner at Lewis Baach PLLC.

For two years, stock traders and the attorneys who represent them said the law surrounding insider trading was a muddle, with no one knowing what exactly is or isn’t legal.
The U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 6 said it had ‘‘easily’’ settled the question (Salman v. United States, 2016 BL 404795, U.S., No. 15-628, 12/6/16).

‘‘Going forward, even remote tippees of inside information are at risk if the government can demonstrate that the defendant knew he was trading on inside information and the chain of disclosure is sufficiently close, even if no money changes hands.’’ Eric Lewis, Lewis Baach PLLC

Both the speed and the unanimity of the decision sent a strong message re-affirming existing insider trading prosecutions, according to Eric Lewis, a partner at Lewis Baach, a Washington DC law firm specializing in financial crimes.

"It was somewhat surprising that the Supreme Court took this case," Lewis told ValueWalk, noting that it had been two decades since the high court took up an insider trading case.

Eric Lewis got a phone call from an old friend’s sister shortly after he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in 2013 detailing his time playing under a high school football coach who was also a serial sexual predator.

That call ultimately led Lewis to take a turn this week as a journalist—a departure from his busy career as a prominent lawyer handling international fraud disputes, including representing Bernie Madoff’s investment firm in its liquidation—at his nearly 40-lawyer firm Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The Appellate Division, First Department, recently affirmed the dismissal of various claims brought by New Greenwich Litigation Trustee, successor to the claims of two feeder funds in the Bernard Madoff affair, against various third-party fund administrators, accountants and auditors.

"If you’re a public-integrity prosecutor, and you’ve been doing that for five years, you know who all the players are,” said Anthony Capozzolo, a former prosecutor in the Eastern District.

A decision by the Supreme Court overturning the 4th Circuit's decision could "considerably erode" the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU's) challenge to H.B. 2 in Carcaño, said Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The justices directly confronted the issue of race in their questions, said Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney with Lewis Baach PLLC in Washington. Robinson extensively worked on civil rights and death penalty cases and formerly worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, though not in connection with Buck.

"It's still their burden to prove their allegations, which right now is based on a lot of innuendo and leaps of logic," said Waleed Nassar, a partner at Lewis Baach, which represents two of the Saudi charities named in the case.

“The government is looking for the Goldilocks number -- not too high and not too low,” said Katherine Toomey, a litigation partner at Lewis Baach Pllc in Washington who’s not involved in the Deutsche Bank case. “They want a deterrent for conduct and punishment, but without putting a major institution out of business or costing jobs.”