Latest Law Articles and News
The window of opportunity is growing for ventures and developers if they have made for mobile device apps, content or services.1. Market opportunity and niches
Mobility and mobile device screens (smartphones, tablets, e-readers) make possible new functionality and uses for devices.
For example it would be useful to know how readers of The Australian Financial Review use their iPads, about 30% of them have iPads! It's a niche, and there are others hiding in research data.
What's exciting about facts like that is that for developers and their investors mobile device app, content or services development provides a point of market entry.
Software development is a field with many myths.
Here's three, following by a myth busting extract from an application development tasks list.
There's the myth of a first mover advantage. Very few successful IT companies were first in their field. Not Google for search engines, not Microsoft for PC operating systems, not Apple for phones or digital music players, and the list goes on.
As our firm is currently working on many contracts for client cloud projects, I listened to this long video and recommend it: The Future of Cloud Computing.
It's a panel presentation held at The Commonwealth Club in California. Some very interesting points are made by the first two speakers.
10 legal tasks for an import or export business
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Tuesday, 13 September 2011 04:21
Noric Dilanchian
Lightbulb
Your training and experience shapes how you investigate and understand a business. Accountants look for numbers, geeks ask about IT systems, and journalists seek news. As a business lawyer I read contracts. I've reviewed over 5,000 contracts in my career.
This Friday I'm running a hypothetical at an exhibition for importers and exporters. The topic is Negotiating Your Supplier and Distributor Contracts.
In preparation, I created a handout listing 10 legal tasks for exporters and importers.
Letter of demand tips for names and trade marks
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Monday, 12 September 2011 07:09
Noric Dilanchian
Lightbulb
Can you file a trade mark application yourself in Australia, without a lawyer or trade mark attorney? Yes. Should you if you don't have substantive experience? No.
Do-it-yourself applications can be dangerous, inadequate, or full of holes for lawyers to drive trucks through.
Here's three reasons and hints on why you'll get value-for-money by outsourcing the job to professionals, at least until you gain experience.
Employment contract repudiation as seen on Facebook
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Thursday, 08 September 2011 09:20
Noric Dilanchian
Library
Can an employee's strongly worded status update on Facebook repudiate his or her employment contract?
Take two. Could the update be evidence of an employee's unwillingness to perform contractual obligations, so serious as to give the employer a right to terminate the employee? A fuller definition of repudiation appears in the endnote below.
Certainly, Facebook content is increasingly cited in court cases, including in divorce and employment disputes. Posts have been used as evidence to justify termination of employees.
But could a status update, post or comment repudiate a contract, not just put it at risk?
Read more: Employment contract repudiation as seen on Facebook
I've been a publishing lawyer for 28 years. In the last year I've been asked by three different friends how to gather thoughts to make a proposal to a book publisher for a non-fiction title.
Here's my most recent advice, stripping it back to a checklist of seven tasks.
For decades the Beatles and Apple Computer, Inc were frenemies.
Entities associated with The Beatles sued Apple Computer, Inc three times over almost three decades. They were big cases, they cost a lot to run. They cost Apple Computer even more to settle.
This mostly trade mark dispute story has been retold many times. For example see Wikipedia. It's the frenemy relationship notion that interest us here.
Yesterday there was confirmation that legal advice pays, sometimes only long term.
Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd, a small Queensland-based telephone directory company, struck down giants - Telstra, Sensis and their claims to copyright in listings in the Yellow Pages and White Pages.
Victory came to Phone Directories when yesterday two judges of the High Court of Australia refused the Telstra and Sensis application for special leave to appeal. In Australia the High Court is the final court of appeal.
