Articles/News
Waiting on Guidance on Berkeley’s Paid Sick Leave Law
The Berkeley ordinance requires employers to pay employees for their time away from work when they or their family members are sick. This local ordinance ups the employer requirements and employee benefits provided by California’s statewide paid sick leave law. Like the California law, Berkeley’s law requires that leave accrue at a rate of at […]
Chinese Broadcaster Alleges Massive Copyright Theft – in the U.S.
Read the full article, Chinese Broadcaster Alleges Massive Copyright Theft – in the U.S.
Donahue Fitzgerald Partner, Jonathan Osder, Receives 2017 Client Choice Award
On February 2, 2017, the International Law Office and Lexology named our partner Jonathan Osder as a recipient of the 2017 Client Choice Awards. Jonathan earned top honors for the state of California for intellectual property in the area of copyright law. Congratulations to Jonathan for being selected for the award from a pool of […]
Donahue Fitzgerald Ranked In Top Tier of 2017 “Best Law Firms”
Firms included in the 2017 “Best Law Firms” list are recognized for professional excellence with persistently impressive ratings from clients and peers. To be eligible for a ranking, a firm must have a lawyer listed in The Best Lawyers in America®, which recognizes the top 4 percent of practicing attorneys in the U.S. Receiving a […]
How will recent changes to federal wage and hour law affect your business?
More specifically, the DOL increased the minimum salary level—from $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476 per year)—that certain employees must earn in order to be considered “exempt” from the FLSA’s overtime requirements. While there are a variety of exemptions from overtime, the revised regulations only apply to those employees who […]
Donahue Fitzgerald Honored to Present Award to Maximum Games
Donahue Fitzgerald LLP sponsored the San Francisco Business Times‘ 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies Awards held on Thursday, October 13, 2016 at the Four Seasons in downtown San Francisco. Partner Michael Sebree presented an award to Maximum Games, which was named 10th out of 100 companies. Sebree stated, “Congratulations to Christina Seelye and her team […]
Protecting your Brand – Inception to Global Market
Owners of emerging businesses may feel there are no new marks, that all the marks have already been used. But new businesses form every year and have created some of the most memorable new trademarks, such as Facebook, YouTube, OrganicGirl, Lyft and Airbnb. Selecting a new mark and protecting it as soon as possible by […]
The Effects of the Defend Trade Secrets Act
Prior to the enactment of the DTSA, injured parties could only file civil trade secret misappropriation claims in state court under state law. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) published by the Uniform Law Commission provided a framework to help states establish standard guidelines. Most states, including California, adopted the UTSA in some form, however […]
‘Happy birthday’ Case May Change Content Licensing Practices
Excerpted from the article: “[The Happy Birthday to You case has] some important takeaways. Mistakes in a copyright registration, such as misstating the author or failing to identify the material, do not generally invalidate the registration. However, such mistakes can make proving ownership of a valid copyright in the work at issue difficult. The copyright […]
The Most Famous Song in the World Set Free: Impacts of the Happy Birthday to You Settlement
Of the lessons learned from Good Morning to You Productions Corp. et al. v. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Andrew S. Mackay and Daniel J. Schacht encourage practitioners to, “Take care that your copyright registration is correct, or you will lose important evidentiary presumptions.” “If you are a copyright owner, don’t assume that you will not bear […]