Apr 26
In T.C. Memo 2012-115 (April 19, 2012), a taxpayer won a notable tax case involving the hobby loss rules. The Tax Court framed the issue as follows: We must decide whether petitioner’s documentary film production activity was a trade or business or a labor of love. Respondent asserts that Smile ‘Til It Hurts was the …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/04/filmmaker-wins-key-victory-in-deducting-losses/
Apr 18
AOL recently announced the sale of over 800 patents and patent applications to Microsoft, and a non-exclusive license covering the rest of its retained patent portfolio. The sale price is $1.056 billion in cash. The sale includes the stock of an AOL subsidiary, which allows AOL to offset the patent sales against a loss involving …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/04/aol-surprise-sale-shows-the-value-of-mapping-technology/
Apr 11
Reebok and Nike have reached a settlement in their dispute over sales of Tim Tebow merchandise. Nike had filed suit in March, alleging that Reebok was improperly selling sporting apparel referencing the football superstar’s new team affiliation (Tebow was traded from the Denver Broncos to the New York Jets in March). Nike asserted that it …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/04/reebok-agrees-to-pull-tebow-apparel-from-shelves-in-licensing-dispute/
Mar 05
Apple is once again able to sell iPads and iPhones in Germany. Apple Inc. recently won a German appeals court ruling that at least temporarily lifts an injunction that prohibited the sale of some iPad and iPhone models. Apple allegedly infringed on certain technology from Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. that a standards setting board identified …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/03/apple-requests-some-frand-ly-advice/
Feb 22
Contracts are often long and arduous to read, with excruciating detail and numerous defined terms that sometimes bear little resemblance to their “real world” usage. And yet, when a problem arises and each side points to the contract to prove the superiority of their position, many items still become a subject of dispute (even if one side’s current …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/02/specificity-in-contracts-can-avoid-future-disputes/
Feb 18
At this years Super Bowl broadcast, GoDaddy once again had the most salacious thirty seconds that they could get past NBC’s content standards. In this case it involved a scantily clad model and body paint cooing suggestively while their celebrity spokeswomen gushed about the hot new .co domain registrations from GoDaddy. So what’s really going on …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/02/do-you-actually-need-a-columbian-web-address/
Jan 02
In Spine Solutions vs. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Case No. 2:07-02175-JPM-dkv (W.D. Tenn. Nov. 23, 2011), a District Court ordered a new trial on damages based on the Federal Circuit’s ruling in Uniloc USA, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 632 F.3d 1292 (Fed. Cir. 2011). In the Uniloc case, the widely-used 25% royalty rule was rejected as …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2012/01/25-reasonable-royalty-rule-is-rejected-even-with-no-objection/
Dec 02
Lost profits are typically understood to yield higher damages than reasonable royalties, but this is not always the case. Higher reasonable royalty damages most frequently occur when the patent holder (inventor) is not in a position to exploit the invention by manufacturing the product himself. In such event, (i) there are no realistic profits to …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2011/12/federal-circuit-again-redefines-a-reasonable-royalty/
Nov 17
When Apple in early August won a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 across most of the European Union (later reduced to just Germany) the common theme in the technology press was that it did not matter how the final ruling went. By then Samsung would have lost the 2011 holiday sales and maybe …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2011/11/samsung-displays-remarkable-agility/
Oct 10
I first wrote here about Netflix’s decision to separate its business into two companies with two separate websites. It was a terrible move. So bad that Netflix announced today that it would not go through with it, stating by email to its customers: It is clear that for many of our members two websites would …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2011/10/netflix-cancels-qwikster-in-hopes-that-customers-will-stop-cancelling-netflix/
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