The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the provisions of the Lanham Act prohibiting trademark infringement and unfair competition are not extraterritorial and extend only to claims where the claimed infringing “use in commerce” occurs in the United States. The decision, Abitron Austria GmbH, et al. v. Hetronic International, Inc., is a major setback for...Read More

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence system that creates new data from patterns and structures learned from enormous amounts of training text and data such as books and websites, images, sound recordings and videos. In response to prompts, generative AI will produce realistic, human-like text and conversations, and some applications will create images,...Read More

The federal Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was designed to protect U.S. national security and the U.S. financial system from money laundering and other illicit activities concealed by anonymous shell companies by requiring domestic companies and foreign companies registered to do business in the U.S. to report information on their beneficial ownership. Effective Jan. 1, 2024...Read More

Millions of families have used 529 college savings programs to save for educational expenses. But parents have hesitated tying up funds in a 529 account because limited options were available to retrieve unused dollars if the student received a scholarship or took a path that did not use the entire savings account balance. Congress heard...Read More

Make a resolution to review your estate plan and confirm important information is available to a family member or trusted friend in the event of an emergency or death. While not all inclusive, the following information should be reviewed then communicated to your designated contact. Where access to an account is online, provide usernames, passwords...Read More

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, which became law Jan. 1, 2020, was a bipartisan effort to make retirement savings more accessible to the less advantaged. While the Act touched on many areas, it made significant changes to the way individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are treated. Here are some of the...Read More

The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), a comprehensive privacy law that will affect many businesses either based in Virginia or doing business with or marketing to consumers in the Commonwealth next year, has been amended by the 2022 General Assembly. The amendments relate to consumer requests to delete personal data held by a business,...Read More

The U.S. Copyright Office issued final rules for how business entities can designate agents to receive Copyright Claims Board (CCB) claim notices and how libraries and archives can preemptively opt out of CCB claim proceedings. The CCB, which will eventually provide a voluntary alternative to federal court, is designed to be an efficient, cost-effective forum...Read More

Individuals involved in relatively small or specialized copyright infringement disputes now have an alternative to potentially costly and time-consuming lawsuits in federal district court. It is anticipated that by mid-2022, select disputed claims can be brought to the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), which was established by Congress through the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE)...Read More

Signed into law earlier this year, the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) is a comprehensive privacy law that will affect many businesses either based in Virginia or doing business with or marketing to consumers in the Commonwealth. As the name suggests, the VCDPA is designed to provide protections to consumer data, allowing consumers to...Read More