Likelihood of prevailing on the merits is already a factor that that the PTAB uses to decide whether to institute an IPR.

No. Patent litigators do both IPRs and district court litigation; even if this article's hysteria about reducing IPR practice were at all realistic it wouldn't affect my workload, and I generally prefer working on IPRs.

Jesus this article is so dumb it hurts. I'm a patent lawyer, and while I'm interested in how the proposed changes may actually play out, it's not going to create some vast shift in patent post-grant practice. A few things to note: 1. IPRs are primarily a litigation tool; if you can't afford a lawsuit, chances are you aren't filing an IPR anyway. 2. The Director of the PTO already has discretionary denial authority. 3. The proposed changes to review of serial IPR petitions won't stop third-party petitions, but it might kill crowd-sourcing of petitions in some instances. The author is painting this as some terrible blow to the public, but who do you think actually pays for most crowd-sourced patent challenges? That's right, major companies looking to knock out the patents of their competitors. Also why are you linking to TechDirt instead of the actual EFF response? You can find that here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/.... It's still hyperbolic and silly but it's at least coherent.

It's not just officers. The duty of loyalty is a feature of agency law that applies to employees generally, typically implicated when employees are transacting on behalf of the company or are involved with transactions that would implicate company interests. The latter is probably what's gonna nail this guy in his coffin.

This is incorrect. Intent varies between crimes, and can vary even between the elements of a single crime. For example, burglary typically requires knowingly breaking and entering a residence, with a specific intent to commit a felony during the break-in, which is probably why that charge was dropped. I'm guessing that misdemeanor criminal trespass in Iowa requires only an intentional, knowing, or reckless trespass, or the charge wouldn't still be pending. Their lawyers seem to think the state's not going to meet that burden, or they wouldn't be going to trial, but the fact that they didn't know they were committing a crime doesn't necessarily mean they weren't committing a crime.

Voter's regret? I'm gonna guess you don't actually live here. I actually live in her district (Bronx side) I didn't vote for her because I'm not a Dem and have no input in their primaries, but she's a fackin hero up here.

I'm a law student, and I've been a software developer for ten years, and this is a bad take. Efficient lawyers find the *best* solutions to their clients' problems. If the client makes it complicated, the solution's gonna be complicated. In both domains, the mark of a skilled professional is that he can help the client to identify what his real problem is and how it can be solved, and to advocate the best solution based on his experience.

Drinking on the job isn't a good luck for anyone.

We have first-floor retail fuckin' everywhere in New York City and it works just fine, because we have *smaller retailers*. Best Buy still kicks around but I haven't seen a Target in years and I don't know anyone who lives here that would be caught dead in one. Megastores are not required for good living.

Another shining example to add to the AC's reputation for wit.

I'm a software developer, but if I have to move into a cabin with no AC, grow vegetables and get a vasectomy after two kids, and in exchange I don't have to worry about the fucking apocalypse hitting in my lifetime, sign me the fuck up.

As long as he's disclosed the conflict to the board and gotten approval from a majority of the disinterested board members, any shareholder opposed is going to face an uphill battle clawing that money back. This kind of self-dealing isn't illegal and if it's done carefully it isn't even a violation of fiduciary duty. Still makes him a cunt, but c'est la vie.

Ehhhh it's been a couple years since I took Contracts, but while no contract is enforceable (as one hasn't been formed) where one party doesn't get compensated in some way, I'm not aware of any right-to-work jurisdiction wherein "continued employment" is insufficient consideration to form a contract. Where non-competes are unenforceable it's either statutory or because they've been found unconscionable, not because they're badly-formed contracts.

Burning mod points because y'all really need to work on your reading comprehension. He isn't bashing technology, he's pointing to a cultural phenomenon that is particularly common among the techno-liberterian crowd, wherein people believe against all evidence that somehow technology and the "free market" are going to save us from the consequences of capitalism while somehow leaving capitalism as we know it intact. It's a dangerously stupid faith, and distressingly well-represented in the comments here.

Well that brings back memories. Silver lining, the uncontrollable shaking helps keep the mosquitoes off during smoke breaks.