Congress Enacts Appropriations Restriction Relating to Felony Convictions
Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.18.12
As is discussed in more detail in a blog posting, the recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 includes provision in five of the nine individual bills covered in the Act prohibiting the use of funds “to enter into a contract, memorandum of understanding, or cooperative agreement with, make a grant to, or provide a loan or loan guarantee to, any corporation” with a felony conviction within the preceding 24 months, unless the agency has considered suspension or debarment and made a determination that no further action is necessary. This provision is almost sure to create uncertainty because Congress did not create a uniform standard, but instead included language in only certain individual appropriation acts, with substantial variances between the different provisions (e.g., some provisions only apply if the corporation is convicted while other also include officers or agents of the corporation).
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Client Alert | 8 min read | 06.30.25
AI Companies Prevail in Path-Breaking Decisions on Fair Use
Last week, artificial intelligence companies won two significant copyright infringement lawsuits brought by copyright holders, marking an important milestone in the development of the law around AI. These decisions – Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta (decided on June 23 and 25, 2025, respectively), along with a February 2025 decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence – suggest that AI companies have plausible defenses to the intellectual property claims that have dogged them since generative AI technologies became widely available several years ago. Whether AI companies can, in all cases, successfully assert that their use of copyrighted content is “fair” will depend on their circumstances and further development of the law by the courts and Congress.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.30.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25
FDA Targets Gene Editing Clinical Trials in China and other “Hostile Countries”
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25
