The Ninth Circuit Court says employers may no longer monitor their employees' text messages without permisison. The court has ruled that the Ontario, Calif. Police Department violated the Stored Communications Act and its employees' privacy rights by inquiring about the content of certain text messages....
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that the Sheboygan-based Acuity Mutual Insurance must pay Symantec $1 million for the unauthorized distribution of Symantec software by UNIK Associates of Wauwatosa. In siding with Symantec, the state's high court upheld lower court rulings in Wisconsin and a...
A new but relatively obscure federal law has rendered illegal many common daily transactions, according to Wisconsin attorney Christian Lavers. In this WTN Guest Column, Lavers said the International Emergency Economic Power Enhancement Act might place companies that ship software overseas in legal jeopardy, especially...
Evaluating whether an attorney is needed when licensing software or acquiring hardware is a bit like the triage process used in the medical profession, according to Wisconsin attorney Mark Foley. In this edition of Digital Lex, he offers 10 questions that companies or information technology...
A doctrine that limits the control a patent owner can exert upon a patented product once it has been sold is now being reviewed by the United States Supreme Court. As attorney Grady Frenchick explains, at stake is whether an unrestricted sale of a patented...
In trademark law, the subjective intent to deceive is no longer the standard for fraud, according to attorney Melinda Giftos. Fraud now occurs when an applicant makes a false material representation that he knows, or should have known, was false. That's why the need for...
Businesses face several legal challenges today, but the most daunting might be electronic discovery requests. Even though they have been place for more than a year, companies are paying a heavy price for their failure to prepare for and comply with the e-component of the...
In Wisconsin, the use of Social Security numbers was identified as the culprit of recent data breaches in state government agencies, but the solution actually lies elsewhere, according to attorney Mark Foley. In this edition of Digital Lex, which explores the intersection of information technology...
The implementation of globally integrated Human Resources Information Systems can be shaped nation by nation, or be predicated on key global standards, according to Wisconsin attorney Mark Foley. In this edition of Digital Lex, Foley offers a series of principles that amount to business process...
Failing to understand data privacy could cause CIOs and other managers headaches like sanctions and redesigns, writes lawyer Mark Foley. When data privacy laws collide with enterprise human resources information systems, even simple reports or data access can involve cross-border data transfers under multiple jurisdictions....