by Karen Vladeck | May 22, 2018 | Intellectual Property
Partner María Amelia Calaf filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the Software and Information Industry (SIIA) and five other entities in St. Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. The issue before the Federal Circuit is whether a corporate entity can assign a patent to a Native American tribe for the sole purpose of allowing the tribe to invoke its sovereign immunity to avoid inter partes review (IPR). An IPR is a post-grant proceeding before the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) where the PTAB reviews the patentability of one or more claims of a previously granted patent.
by Slade Cutter | May 21, 2018 | Wittliff Cutter
Curious to learn more about Texas’s Anti-SLAPP statute? Or wanting to get an update on recent important decisions by the Texas Supreme Court? Read the summary paper authored by WCA partners María Amelia Calaf and Ryan Botkin and Jennifer Hopgood of the Office of the Texas Attorney General on Texas Citizens Participation Act: Current and Future Boundaries of “Anti-SLAPP” for a thorough overview of the law and practical tips for state law practitioners.
by Karen Vladeck | Apr 11, 2018 | Technology
Partner Reid Wittliff recently taught two classes focused on technology law. On April 5, Reid taught an eDiscovery and Digital Forensics lecture to the University of Texas School of Law Technology in Litigation class. The presentation focused on the effective use of discovery to obtain digital evidence and the process digital forensics examiners use to identify, capture, preserver and present digital evidence in litigation.
by Slade Cutter | Apr 2, 2018 | Wittliff Cutter
Partners Ryan Botkin and Karen Vladeck will present at the Austin Bar Association’s Annual Bench Bar Conference on April 13, 2018. The Bench Bar Conference is one of the bar’s biggest annual events, which will be held at the Eilan Hotel in San Antonio.
by Karen Vladeck | Mar 27, 2018 | Employment
As an employment lawyer, I often see provisions in employee handbooks that say something along the lines of: “Discussing pay and other confidential terms of employment with your co-workers is prohibited.” This type of clause — or anything that prohibits your employees from discussing the terms and conditions of their employment — is prohibited under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
by Reid Wittliff | Mar 8, 2018 | Wittliff Cutter
Wittliff Cutter Austin is pleased to announce that Partner Karen Vladeck has been named a Texas Super Lawyers Rising Star for 2018.
by Karen Vladeck | Feb 19, 2018 | Employment
On February 16, 2018, the Austin City Council passed a long-anticipated ordinance that requires private companies with employees in Austin to provide paid sick leave. The ordinance goes into effect on October 1, 2018 for all employers with six or more employees within the City and on October 1, 2020 for all employers with five or fewer employees. The law only applies to W-2 employees and does not apply to Independent Contractors.
by Reid Wittliff | Apr 1, 2016 | Wittliff Cutter
Discovery of metadata – data about data – is becoming increasingly important in litigation. This is because metadata may be able to shed light on the who, what, when and where of digital evidence as metadata contains wide ranging information about digital files.
by Reid Wittliff | Nov 1, 2015 | Wittliff Cutter
Revised Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) entitled “Failure to Preserve Electronically Stored Information” was included in the package of rules the US Supreme Court recently transmitted to Congress. If Congress does not act, the rule will become effective on December 1, 2015. The chair of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Judge David Campbell, described the task of drafting this rule as “the most challenging task any of us on the committee have ever undertaken.”
by Reid Wittliff | Aug 1, 2015 | Technology
It has been almost five years since the Texas Legislature enacted an anti-botnet law, Texas Business & Commerce Code § 324.055, to combat botnets on the Internet. But as of the date of this writing, there are no reported Texas cases interpreting the law, and botnets continue to be as big an online scourge as ever.
