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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Urjanet presents a complimentary webinar about accessing timely, accurate, and high-quality energy data as the first step for making smarter, more profitable, and eco-friendly energy decisions.

“Acquiring energy data, with its large volumes and disparate formats, is a daunting task because there are no standards in the industry,” said Urjanet’s Vice President of Sales, Erik Becker, who moderates the panel discussion. “In this webinar we discuss how essential it is to have good data to make informed decisions related to energy.”

On its website, Urjanet says attendees will learn what causes good energy data to go bad, why bad data leads to missed opportunities and poor capital investments, and how automating energy data can help reduce energy costs and carbon emissions. For this session, Urjanet partnered with energy management industry experts including Joseph Aamidor, Product Manager for JCI, and Alisdair McDougall of the leading research analyst firm Verdantix.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Electricity Pylons by Nick Page, on Flickr

ABB has posted a complimentary on-demand webinar on planning for electrical grid stability and reliability.

While weather events like Hurricane Sandy grab national headlines, they aren’t the only threat to transmission grids, ABB says on its website. The shift in generation caused by the integration of renewables and coal plant closures has also created issues with grid stability and reliability. Add in aging infrastructure, and stresses on the transmission grid are only going to get worse.

Preparing the system to withstand and recover from these failures and events requires proper planning and optimization of investments.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Compliancy Group will host a complimentary webinar to help health care organizations manage patient receivables in a more efficient, profitable way.

The 90-minute webinar will be Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

IBM offers a complimentary on-demand webinar on how to optimize proper contract governance across the global organization.

Contracts are the foundation of every business relationship, IBM says on its website. But today, most businesses can’t ensure that the proper protections are contained in each and every agreement, as many legal departments don’t have the staff or resources to examine every single contract under management.

This webinar covers: Why flexibility matters to contracting for your people, your processes and the supporting technology, how to leverage contract management solutions to fit the ever-changing landscape of your enterprise, and what your peers are doing today to keep extending the value of contracting.

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The Center for Resource Solutions has posted a complimentary on-demand webinar outlining guidelines for states to use existing renewable energy certificate (REC) tracking systems as an integral part of state compliance for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

The webinar is titled “Tracking Renewable Energy for the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan: Guidelines for States to Use Existing REC Tracking Systems to Comply with 111(d).”

These REC tracking systems, together with state policies designed to increase the production and use of renewable electricity, will be critical to states looking to use renewable energy like wind and solar to reduce the carbon intensity of their power sector, CRS says on its website.

Watch the on-demand webinar and see the slides.

Energy Central presents a free on-demand webinar on the delicate balancing energy providers face between meeting regulations and keeping transmission and distribution assets safe.

“Volumes have been penned on how to weather and respond to NERC CIP regulations, and even more volumes have amassed on the extra components required to truly keep assets safe,” Energy Central writes on its website. “In this hour, we’ll bring together both sides of the issue and examine how to blend processes. Since you’ll have to contend with both concepts using the same equipment, the same people and the same technology, smart thinking dictates looking at both needs and planning efficiently at the same time. But where do you start?”

Free registration is required to view the webinar.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Litigation Committee presents a free on-demand webinar on the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process.

The event was sponsored by Kobre & Kim LLP.

On its website, ACC says the value of judgments and arbitration awards coming out of large-scale litigation continues to rise, so does the challenge of enforcing them. Sophisticated judgment debtors today often hold assets protected in a variety of structures in offshore financial centers around the world, which create challenging roadblocks to efficient and prompt recovery that can only be overcome with the right tools and strategies.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process. The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Practical Law and Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn LLP have posted a free on-demand webinar titled “Insider Perspective: Antitrust Treatment of Physician Practice Acquisitions,” a discussion of the decisions in Saint Alphonsus, et al v. St. Luke’s, et al and Federal Trade Commission, et al v. St. Luke’s, et al, the first cases to address the antitrust implications of hospital acquisitions of physician practices.

Peter Herrick, Senior Trial Counsel, Federal Trade Commission; David Ettinger, counsel for St. Alphonsus Health System; and Stephanie Westermeier, General Counsel, Saint Alphonsus Health System offered their insider perspectives about these landmark decisions in which they were directly involved, including which evidence was most persuasive and counseling tips for future physician group acquisitions.

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Business Finance has posted a complimentary online webinar titled “Is Your Finance Department Data Driven? Conquering the Challenge of ‘Doing More with Less’.”

On its website, the magazine says today’s CFO is increasingly called upon to “do more with less.” This means providing value-added analytics to the business that help the firm improve profitability, meet ever-increasing transparency requirements from regulators and management and simultaneously maintain or reduce Finance and IT spend.

In pursuit of this goal, many leading finance departments have discovered the transformative value of a data-driven approach to managing financial and operational information and analytics, Business Finance says. This webinar details the way in which leading finance departments are using analytical capabilities to maximize reporting and analytic transparency while increasing functional efficiency.

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The Network for Public Health Law presents a free on-demand webinar providing an update on Affordable Care Act implementation, including states’ decisions regarding Medicaid expansion and health insurance exchanges, as well as a number of provisions regarding public health.

Experts will also discuss the legal challenges, some seeking to enjoin the law and others, to enforce it.

November marked the second year when millions of Americans can purchase health insurance coverage through the online marketplaces established by the ACA. The health law’s first year was bumpy, due to technical glitches that plagued the marketplaces and a number of states’ refusals to expand Medicaid, The Network said on its website. The ACA was challenged by dozens of lawsuits that raised a range of constitutional and statutory arguments. In the most high profile case of the year, the Supreme Court ruled that some companies can be exempt from the ACA’s contraceptive requirements.

Watch the on-demand webinar and view the slides.

Practical Law presents an on-demand discussion with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP about IP and information technology considerations in the context of negotiating and drafting complex corporate transactions for in-house lawyers and their counsel.

Presenters of this webinar address conducting IP due diligence, special considerations for carve-outs and spin-offs, potential effects of various transaction structures on IP assets and agreements, and more.

Speakers from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP are Daniel Glazer, Henry Lebowitz and Jason Greenberg. The moderator is Patricia Harley, Head Editor, Practical Law Intellectual Property & Technology.

Free registration is required.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Norton Rose Fulbright presents a complimentary on-demand webinar on the key issues facing energy companies worldwide as they pursue new opportunities in the unconventional hydrocarbon sector.

On its website, the firm says that in the last ten years, technical advances in hydraulic fracturing have made vast reserves of shale gas and oil technically and economically recoverable in North America.

Currently, the United States and Canada account for virtually all of the global shale related production. As shale oil and gas production increases globally, North America’s experience in the exploration and production of unconventional resources can serve as a valuable blueprint for countries in the initial stages of this development.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability in coordination with the Federal Smart Grid Task Force will conduct a webinar to conclude the development phase of a Voluntary Code of Conduct (VCC) related to privacy of customer energy usage data for utilities and third parties.

The event will be Thursday, Dec. 11, 1-4 p.m. Eastern time.

The webinar will summarize changes made to the VCC concepts and principles as a result of comments received through the public comment period. In addition, a proposed implementation plan and adoption process will be presented as well as preliminary results from focus groups conducted to gauge consumer sentiment.

Register for the complimentary webinar.

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP presents a complimentary webinar, “The Lure of Functional Claiming: Benefits, Pitfalls, and Recent Court Decisions.” The one-hour webinar will take place on Wednesday, December 17, 2014, at 11:00 am CST.

Patent attorneys have historically used functional claim language in an effort to cover what an invention does rather than what it is. The use of functional language in a claim presents potential advantages over strictly reciting structure, but also presents potential risks during prosecution and litigation. Understanding how the USPTO and courts are currently evaluating functional claim language is essential to writing and prosecuting patent applications that issue with valuable and enforceable claims.

During the webinar, we will cover these topics and more:
• Functional claim language: history, examples, and advantages
• Functional claim-drafting techniques for maximum impact at the USPTO
• Cases including Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc. and their impact on the interpretation of functional claim terms during litigation
• Writing and prosecuting applications to survive the storm of litigation and post-grant proceedings

Our speakers will be Fitch Even attorneys Stephen S. Favakeh and Jonathan H. Urbanek. For over 20 years, Steve Favakeh has assisted clients in the strategic procurement and enforcement of patent and trademark rights in the U.S. and abroad, with a special focus on Japanese clients. Jon Urbanek focuses his IP law practice on patent preparation and prosecution and advises clients working in diverse technologies on issues including freedom-to-operate decisions, product design-arounds, and competitive technology analysis.

CLE: IL, CA, NE; other states may also grant CLE upon attendee request.

There is no fee to attend, but please note registration is required.

Register for the webinar.