NY Courts enforce non-competes only if: There is a legitimate business purpose, such as to protect a trade secret, and not general restriction on competition.Must be narrowly construed in terms of geography and time. Meaning geographical boundaries of the non-compete must be narrow. For example, a single locale, town or borough. Including one or more states, or entire US will probably not fly.Legitimately protect employer’s interests. These interests need to be defined. Otherwise, it will just be a simple restriction on competition. General restriction on competition is against public policy and cannot…
Question: Can a self-settled trust shield creator’s assets from claims by creditors? Answer: First what is a self-settled trust? It is a trust that is funded by the creator during creator’s lifetime and where the creator is also the income and/or principal beneficiary. Now for the answer, under NJSA 3B:11-1(a) any reserved right in the creator to either income or principal is reachable by the creditors of the creator. Note that the statute does not distinguish between revocable or irrevocable trusts, since a revocable trust is simply a reservation of property rights to the…
House Votes to Eliminate Estate Tax (the ubiquitous low hanging fruit) It seems that every new administration or Congress has something to say regarding the federal estate taxation. The main motivator is publicity, since this type of taxation affects few households, a measure in this area would make a great news story, but would have limited actual impact. As many of you probably heard, the Republican controlled House has approved a measure that would eliminate the federal estate tax, which currently kicks in after the exclusion amount of 5.43 million for individuals…
What: This initiative began on June 2nd and will begin for six months, or until 200 petitions are granted for participation in the program. Purpose: program is exploring different application drafting styles, and to provide information regarding the meaning of claim terms. Benefits of Participation: Applications accepted into this pilot program receive expedited examination AT NO ADDITIONAL COST!!! (think, a petition to make special is between $35 and $140, petition for expedited examination between $1000 and $4000) Eligibility: program is being offered to software-related technological fields and some business method inventions. Apps must include a glossary explaining claim…
Computer Enabled Method Patent: Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International (US Supreme Court, June 19, 2014) At issue in this case were patent eligibility of claims drawn to a computer enabled business method. The Supreme Court held that the claims in this patent were not patent eligible. This decision does not spell the end to all business methods or computer based inventions. In fact, the decision in Alice Corp. does not change anything or introduce any new standards to the issue of what constitutes a patentable subject matter. The Alice Corp. patent…
