Category Archives: PLI Press

PLI Course Handbooks Published in May 2014

Listed below are the PLI Course Handbooks published in May 2014:

Corporate Law and Practice

Intellectual Property Law

Litigation and Administrative Law

New York Practice Skills

Tax Law and Estate Planning

If you have any questions or would like to order a title, please email the PLI Library Relations Department or call 877-900-5291.

PLI Treatises Updated in May 2014

In May 2014, PLI updated the following Treatises:

If you are on standing order for any of these titles, the releases have already been shipped. If you would like to place an order, please email PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

PLI New Editions Published in May 2014

In May 2014, PLI published the following new Treatise editions:

If you are on standing order for these titles or have a Standing Order Plan with PLI, these have already been shipped to you. If you would like to place an order, please email PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

PLI Course Handbooks Published in April 2014

Listed below are the PLI Course Handbooks published in April 2014

Corporate Law and Practice

Intellectual Property Law

Litigation and Administrative Law

New York Practice Skills

Tax Law and Estate Planning

If you have any questions or would like to order a title, please email the PLI Library Relations Department or call 877-900-5291.

PLI New Editions Published in April 2014

In April 2014, PLI published the following new Treatise editions:

If you are on standing order for these titles or have a Standing Order Plan with PLI, these have already been shipped to you. If you would like to place an order, please email PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

PLI Treatises Updated in April 2014

In April 2014, PLI updated the following Treatises:

If you are on standing order for any of these titles, the releases have already been shipped. If you would like to place an order, please email PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

PLI’s New Answer Book Standing Order Plan

AB SO Plan

 

Due to customer demand, PLI recently unveiled a new way to receive our acclaimed Answer Books–our Answer Book Standing Order Plan!  Much like our Treatise Standing Order Plan, the Answer Book plan allows subscribers to receive review copies of all future Answer Books while receiving a discount of 35% off the retail price of those they decide to keep.

For more information on our Answer Book Standing Order plan, click here or contact PLI’s Library Relations team .

Review of PLI’s Social Media and the Law

Social Media and the Law

PLI’s Social Media and the Law received a very nice review from the Orange County Business Attorney Blog, which you can view here.  The Treatise is available for purchase here and is also accessible online on our eBook library, PLI Discover PLUS. Interested in learning more about this book or PLI Discover PLUS? Contact PLI’s Library Relations team at PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

Social Media and the Law – Book Review 

A few months ago, the Practicing Law Institute, a well-known publisher of legal practice guides, asked me to comment on its new book, Social Medial and the Law.  I agreed to do so because I was curious as to what was in the book and wanted to find out whether this book could be an aid to my practice as a business litigation attorney and to my clients.

After a few weeks of reading the book, I find that it is a valuable resource for me as a business litigator.

My office is in Orange County, California, and I have served the business communities here for more than a decade.  My clientele comprises small to medium sized businesses, with most them doing business internationally.  Like most attorneys, I have been seeing a gigantic shift of focus to social media in business, as they have become an integral part of my clients’ business.

I often receive calls from clients inquiring about how to deal with untrue comments from disgruntled customers that have been posted on the Internet, how to create an office policy regarding social media (both the company’s and employees’), how to deal with trademark or other intellectual property infringements, and how to defend clients from a claim arising out of social media.

I find this book valuable because the author covers the topics thoroughly and with a focus on the importance of each area.  Unlike other practice guides that try to impress the reader with the details of information, this book focuses on only the essentials, so that once I have enough information that deals with a client’s situation, I then can focus on the legal research that specifically addresses the issue of what the client is experiencing.  The content of this book is balanced between simplicity and sufficiency.  I don’t feel that I am buried under all the facts and details that may or may not apply to my client’s situation, and yet I feel that the information given is sufficient to help me discuss the matter intelligently with the client and focus my effort on subsequent legal research and preparation for the case.

Chapters 2 to 9 are the meat of the book, in my opinion; they deal with every conceivable issue that may come up in the context of social media, such as the following:

  • Privacy
  • Copyrights, ownership, and control of content
  • Trademarks and brand protection
  • Defamation, other torts, and related cybercrimes
  • Employment and workplace issues
  • Compliance considerations for regulated industry (healthcare, financial, publicly traded company, etc.)
  • Advertising

Although Kathryn L. Ossian is listed on the book cover and is identified as the editor, there are other contributing writers with equally impressive resumes in their areas of expertise.

As a business litigation and trial attorney, without being an expert in the field, I often need to have a grasp on sufficient expertise on the issues before me to formulate the litigation strategies and to tell the story to the judge or jury at the time of trial.  This book helps me to accomplish just that in the area of social media.

 

 

PLI’s Kane on Trademark Law on Wells IP Law

Kane 6eCheck out this nice mention of PLI’s treatise, Kane on TradeMark Law: A Practitioner’s Guide 6th Edition , on Wells IP Law here.  You can purchase the book by clicking here.  Kane on Trademark Law is also available on our eBook library platform PLI Discover PLUS.   Interested in learning more about this book or PLI Discover PLUS? Contact PLI’s Library Relations team at PLI Library Relations or call 877-900-5291.

Kane on Trademarks – Book Review 

By: Nicholas Wells | April 19, 2014

Siegrun D. Kane.  2013.  Kane on Trademark Law: A Practitioner’s Guide (6th Edition). Practising Law Institute: New York. 1071 pages.  $395 from publisher; $375.25 from Amazon.com

I work in several areas of law—copyright, social media, technology agreements, advertising and promotions—but at the moment, I spend the largest part of my day working on trademark matters.  If you’re familiar with trademark law, you know that the leading work in the field, cited by hundreds of court decisions, is J. Thomas Mc Carthy’s treatise, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition.  Coming in at seven volumes—and growing, and with a front matter and Table of Contents that stretches 154 pages, McCarthy can be… unwieldy.  The $ 4,500 price tag may also be a concern for many smaller firms or lawyers who don’t spend all day handling trademarks.  Still, it is the resource everyone quotes.

So when PLI offered to send me a review copy of Kane on Trademark Law by Siegrun D. Kane, I was curious to see how it compared.

The short answer:  For most lawyers and in-house counsel, Kane’s book is the better choice.

Don’t get me wrong.  If you’re litigating trademark cases in federal court, you’ll probably like having McCarthy around.  But most of us don’t do that.  Kane on Trademark Law, now in its Sixth Edition, seems committed to remaining a one-volume work.  That choice is emblematic of its usefulness.  Everything you’re likely to need to know about trademarks is in your hand.  Kane is subtitled A Practitioner’s Guide.  Not a Judge’s Guide, or a Professor’s Guide, or even a Litigator’s Guide.

The Kane text is well organized, well footnoted, and well written, with headings that make it easy to find the topic you need.  (It also has a 60-page index.)  There are sections on false advertising, litigation, Internet infringements, licensing, and dilution, in addition to the sections you’d expect to find on clearing marks for registration, prosecution procedures, and proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Kane also comes with a CD-ROM that contains the entire text of the volume in searchable, linked PDF files, carefully formatted to match the printed book.  I’ve found this to be tremendously useful.

As an example of the different approach of Kane and McCarthy, consider the key trademark issue of likelihood of confusion between trademarks.  Kane has 35 pages on the topic, plus another 20 focused on counterfeiting.  McCarthy devotes Volume 3 to the topic—800 or so pages—plus innumerable related sections that appear in other volumes (See, e.g., Chapter 31, Volume 6, Defenses to Infringement).  Or consider the sections on Inter Partes TTAB proceedings.  Kane has 54 pages of succinct text on topics that include procedures, grounds, defenses, burden of proof, and review routes for TTAB decisions.  McCarthy devotes… well, you get the idea.

I love McCarthy, but I keep using Kane because most of the time, I don’t have the time to use McCarthy.  And my clients don’t have the money.  Kane reminds me of the points I need to know.  It references the statutory sections and leading cases.  It summarizes and recommends practice steps without as much scholarly background.  Most days, it’s just the better tool for what I need.

I think that’s also true for those, like in-house counsel, who are dealing with trademarks, social media, advertising, employment, real estate leases, contract disputes… and that’s just before lunch.  Kane on Trademarks will serve in-house counsel by providing guidance on most trademark issues that they are likely to face.  They’ll hire litigators to take trademark cases to the Federal Circuit and they will use McCarthy.

Kane does miss some areas that I wish it included.  There appears to be nothing about ex parte appeals at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.  Perhaps it’s not a critical topic for most readers, but I’d like to see more on it.  There is a little about using the Madrid Protocol, but virtually nothing about international trademark protection.  This is clearly a book about U.S. law, but given its apparent target audience, at least a brief section on how international trademarks operate with some strategy pointers and references would be appropriate.  Finally, there isn’t much about the procedures for handling disputes.  True, those procedures are based on the TTAB manual and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  But guidance in a book like this goes a long way to help those not familiar with the rules.

Despite a few minor weaknesses, Kane on Trademarks seems to spend a lot of time on the corner of my desk.