Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc. (IPXI), the world’s first financial exchange for licensing and trading intellectual property (IP) rights, will conduct three public webinar presentations on Dec. 16 to provide important details on its recently announced Unit License Right™ (ULR™) offering of patents essential to the world’s most widely adopted standard protocol for wireless technology.

The WFN1 offering of ULR contracts includes patent rights owned by eight leading organizations whose patents have been independently determined to be essential to the IEEE 802.11n standard used in wireless local area network (WLAN) communications.

To accommodate potential purchasers in multiple regions, IPXI will host three free webinars at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, Dec. 16. To register, visit https://www.ipxi.com/wfn1/webinar.

Read details and register.

ICF International presents a complimentary on-demand webinar featuring its gas experts discussing the outlook for the coming winter in the context of last year’s polar vortex and the subsequent performance of the North American natural gas market.

After exiting last winter with relatively low working gas levels, gas supply systems seem poised to enter the winter season in relatively good form, ICF says on its website.

Topics for the webinar include:

• What could a rerun of last winter mean this year?
• What lessons, if any, have been learned?
• In the longer run, how is the outlook for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports shaping up, and what other factors will drive the gas market going forward?

View the on-demand webinar.

Revitas offers a free white paper discussing a recent study of manufacturing and technology professionals that examines how companies are managing their channel sales relationships.

Manufacturing and technology companies depend on channel sellers to drive revenue, Revitas says on its website.  “At the same time, they struggle to apply creative channel incentive strategies, and to understand which promotions successfully drive new business. Disjointed, aging contract, revenue, and compliance management systems are largely at fault.”

The company says this study evaluates obstacles facing companies and gauges drivers that would push them to explore new alternative solutions.

Download the white paper.

Apttus is offering a free white paper on a survey that reveals what many companies identified as flaws in their contract management processes and steps that can be taken to improve them.

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner presents a free on-demand webinar on the importance of adequate preparation in patent infringement litigation.

Advanced preparation and strategic planning among business leaders, technical and regulatory personnel, inside counsel, and outside counsel can be essential to position your company for a successful outcome, the firm says on its website.

Webinar topics include:

• Using best practices to obtain patent claims that maximize your chances of proving patent infringement and defending against patentability challenges;
• Investigating the potential issues, important documents, and major players that will provide key information during discovery and at trial;
• Developing litigation themes to ensure that the litigation proceeds on the correct path;
• Coordinating company communications to ensure that representations are accurate and consistent with the company’s litigation positions; and
• Using proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to strengthen your portfolio or to avoid potentially expensive and disruptive litigation.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology offers a free complimentary webinar on setting a value for intellectual property after the acquisition of a patent, copyright or trademark.

On its website, NIST says viewers of the webinar can hear from experienced professionals on the true value of your IP and how much it is worth from both ROI and NPV viewpoints.

Knowing the value of intellectual property can be important when a company is being considered for acquisition or when venture capitalists are considering making investments in an operation, webinar speakers explain.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

An elite cadre of lawyers has emerged as first among equals, giving their clients a disproportionate chance to influence the law of the land because their appeals are more likely to be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court than others, reports Reuters.

A Reuters examination of nine years of cases shows that 66 of the 17,000 lawyers who petitioned the Supreme Court succeeded at getting their clients’ appeals heard at a remarkable rate. Their appeals were at least six times more likely to be accepted by the court than were all others filed by private lawyers during that period.

“The lawyers are the most influential members of one of the most powerful specialties in America: the business of practicing before the Supreme Court.” the Reuters report says. “None of these lawyers is a household name. But many are familiar to the nine justices. That’s because about half worked for justices past or present, and some socialize with them.”

Read the story.

Verizon Communications Inc. has announced that Craig Silliman, senior vice president, public policy, has been named executive vice president – public policy and general counsel.

His appointment will be effective Jan. 1, 2015.

He will succeed Randal S. Milch, who has been appointed to a new position as strategic policy adviser to Lowell C. McAdam, Verizon’s chairman and CEO. Milch will oversee strategic policy initiatives.

In his new role, Silliman will also report to McAdam and lead the company’s public policy, legal, regulatory, government affairs and security groups.

Read the story.

Brinker International, Inc. announced Dec. 8 that Scarlett May has been named Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of the company, effective Dec. 15, 2014.

May is a restaurant industry veteran with an extensive background in the casual dining space, the company said in a news release. She most recently served as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary for Ruby Tuesday, Inc., which owns or franchises 749 Ruby Tuesday brand restaurants and 27 Lime Fresh brand restaurants.

Brinker International, Inc. is one of the world’s leading casual dining restaurant companies. Founded in 1975 and based in Dallas, as of Sept. 24, 2014, Brinker owned, operated or franchised 1,622 restaurants under the names Chili’s Grill & Bar (1,574 restaurants) and Maggiano’s Little Italy (48 restaurants).

Equifax Workforce Solutions will present a complimentary webinar details on President Obama’s immigration plan and methods to help an organization gauge the potential impact on the hiring processes and procedures as well as retention procedures.

The 60-minute webinar will be Tuesday, Dec. 16, beginning at noon Central time.

Speakers will be Montserrat Miller, Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP; Jason Fry, Senior Director, Equifax Workforce Solutions; and Chad Whittenberg, Sr. Director, Product Management – I-9 & E-Verify, Equifax Workforce Solutions.

Topics to be covered include:

–What and who is included in the President’s executive action
–What it means to affected populations
–What it means to the business community
–What it means for the Form I-9 and E-Verify
–What impact it may have short-term and long-term for comprehensive immigration reform

Register for the webinar.

Clearwater Compliance will present a complimentary webinar describing best practices for business leaders, managers and professionals with responsibility for HIPAA privacy, security, compliance or risk management.

The webinar will be Thursday, Dec. 18, at 11 a.m. Central time.

On its website, Clearwater says the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule (Final Rule), finalized in 2013, made substantial changes to the obligations and liabilities of business associates (BAs) and their subcontractors. These changes implement provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), which sought to make business associates more accountable for the use, disclosure and security of protected health information (PHI).  Business Associates, and their subcontractors, now face HIPAA enforcement actions and are directly liable for violating the HIPAA Security Rule, as well as certain provisions of the Privacy and Breach Notification Rules.

The Final Rule extended the definition of “business associate” to include a “subcontractor that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information on behalf of the business associate.” Although the Final Rule has been in effect for over a year, most BAs, and subcontractors, are not compliant and many don’t know where to start. Clearwater says.

Register for the webinar.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that most international bribes are paid by large corporations, usually with the knowledge of senior-level executives, reports Bloomberg BNA.

The OECD’s Foreign Bribery Report, released Dec. 2, studied 427 transnational bribery cases that occurred between February 1999 and June 2014. In 41 percent of the cases, management-level employees paid or authorized the bribes, while chief executive officers were involved in 12 percent of the cases, according to the report.

Bloomberg BNA says the report also found that three-quarters of the cases involved intermediaries. In 41 percent of the cases, the intermediaries were agents, distributors or brokers. In another 35 percent of the cases, the intermediaries were corporate vehicles, such as subsidiaries or companies established under the beneficial ownership of the foreign official being bribed.

Read the story.

Out of public view, corporate representatives and attorneys general are coordinating legal strategy and other efforts to fight federal regulations, according to a review of thousands of emails and court documents and dozens of interviews, reports The New York Times.

Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year, according to the report in the Times.

They share a common philosophy about the reach of the federal government, but the companies also have billions of dollars at stake. And the collaboration is likely to grow.

Read the story.

Many large retailers remain woefully unprepared to defend against a cyber attack, according to security experts quoted in a report in The San Jose Mercury News.

Cyber thieves are smarter and more efficient at breaking into retailers’ networks and stealing consumer data, and some credit card companies are ratcheting down fraud protection to speed transactions during the shopping rush. That sets up the holidays to potentially be a whammy of a payday for criminal groups — and puts consumers at greater risk as they enter the biggest shopping season of the year.

The report says consumers can expect to pay — as retailers face mounting fines from financial regulators for data breaches, and must invest in pricey new security systems, some experts expect the costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Read the story.

Cisco Systems filed a suit on Dec. 5 against Arista Networks, a networking switch company and fast-moving competitor, accusing it of copying large amounts of Cisco’s work, reports The New York Times.

In the suit, the plaintiff claimed Arista violated 14 Cisco patents, some of which were based on work by Andreas Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, Arista’s founders, when they were at Cisco. The two men, well-respected engineers, sold a company, Granite Systems, to Cisco in 1996.

The case, filed in the Federal District Court in Northern California, will probably go on for at least months, according to The Times‘ report. Cisco’s stated goal is to force Arista to withdraw its crucial products from the market, along with seeking damages.

Read the story.

The Houston commercial litigation firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, is being recognized as one of the country’s Best Law Firms for the third time by U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America.

AZA, renowned for its courtroom success, earned a place among the top tier of Houston civil litigation firms on the national list for 2015.

The Best Law Firms recognition is one of the most prestigious national rankings in the legal profession. The list is compiled by researchers with U.S. News and Best Lawyers who survey thousands of attorneys and clients. The full listing is available at http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/.

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An alert issued by the FBI on Monday is warning about a type of computer malware that has the ability to destroy any system it infects, reports CSO on its website. The memo, #A-000044-MW, was obtained by Salted Hash from a source that wishes to remain anonymous.

Those who have seen the memo, including the group where it was first shared, are speculating that it’s related to the incident at Sony Pictures.

In both cases – South Korea then, and Sony Pictures now – the malware forced the victim’s networks offline according to local reports out of Korea and Sony’s own employees, CSO said.

Read the story.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two top ex-officers of a company that operates assisted living centers with listing fake occupants at several senior residences to meet the terms of a lease and misrepresenting in regulatory filings that the company was in compliance with the lease.

A report from the SEC says the alleged fraud orchestrated by Assisted Living Concepts Inc.’s former CEO, Laurie Bebo, and former CFO John Buono between 2009 and early 2012 even extended to directing ALC staff to falsely identify Bebo’s parents and husband as residents of facilities that the company rented from Ventas Inc. Another of the purported senior residents was just seven years old, the SEC said in a news release on Wednesday.

Read the story.

Berkman Solutions has posted a contracts-and-compliance white paper and slides examining the two primary sources of compliance obligations related to contracts: performance obligations and government regulations.

For each source of compliance challenge, this paper identifies methods to improve compliance and contract management.

Berkman Solutions says that compliance requirements touch every organization across industries. Regulations can lay down the rules of the road or impose barriers to business. Compliance is essential for success, like good brakes on a car. In any organization, contract management must be an integral part of compliance.

Read the white paper.

Aronson will present a complimentary webinar providing tips, guidance and best practices to help government contractors efficiently close out their cost type contracts.

The webinar will be Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

Due to the government’s legendary incurred cost audit backlog, many government contractors have never experienced a contract closeout, Aronson says on its website. As a result of DCAA’s recent emphasis on completing incurred cost audits, contractors are starting to receive their final indirect rate letters and preparing for closeout.

Contract experts Tom Marcinko and Donna Dominguez will address:

• Incurred Cost Submission/Final Rates
• Closing Out Subcontracts
• Final Invoices
  • Fee Retainage
  • Indirect Rate Variances
• Closeout Forms and Certifications
• Quick Close Outs

Register for the webinar.