International Intellectual Property Legal Blog

On Oct. 22, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would create a copyright small claims court for online content creators. The measure was approved by a vote of 410-6.

The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, or the CASE Act, would let authors, graphic artists, photographers and other internet content creators go after copyright infringers in a special small claims court if they are seeking a total of $30,000 or less in damages. Currently, all copyright cases are required to go through the federal court system, which takes a significant amount of time and money. The bill was introduced by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in 2018.

Learning of a business dispute that is happening in your company can be highly disconcerting. Depending on the severity of the dispute, who it involves and what it is about, such disagreements can have a debilitating effect on organizational processes that ultimately affect productivity and success. At Bilicki Law, we have been able to help concerned business owners in New York to solve issues within their organization. 

One of the biggest challenges of operating a business is creating an environment where people can work well together. This requires you to implement policies designed to promote tolerance, as well as responsibility and professionalism in accomplishing business objectives. Your efforts can help to reduce conflict before it even begins. However, in the situations where a dispute does arise, the sooner you can detect it, intervene and provide a solution, the more effective you will be at minimizing its impact. 

Keeping important information from getting into the wrong hands is imperative to your company's protection and success. While you can monitor who has access to confidential information in order to minimize their exposure, it is also important for your company, especially if you have an International presence, to implement protocols designed to keep your most sensitive information private. 

Being aware of the steps that can be taken to more effectively protect trade secrets and other valuable information is only the beginning of keeping your company safe. Once protocols are in place, they should be regularly analyzed to determine that they are working optimally. Frequent analysis can help you identify areas where additional support is necessary to prevent loopholes from creating hazards. 

In 2013, Uber grew from a $330 million company to a worth of $3.5 billion due to venture capital investments. However, before pursuing the additional funding, Uber’s co-founder decided to do some tax-planning. According to Fortune, the ridesharing company created a new business in the Netherlands known as Uber International C.V., which essentially moved the company’s intellectual property overseas.

U.S.-based Uber then created an agreement to split profits in half. Thus, when venture capitals sped up Uber’s growth process, it could legally avoid paying taxes on almost all of its non-U.S. rideshare income. Fortune reports that Google and Facebook employed similar strategies for similar reasons. In fact, American companies often find it easier to move their IPs overseas than relocating a physical subsidiary. For tech companies, where so much of their core business takes place online, there is hardly ever a need to attempt a physical move.