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Galactic Foresight Required: NASA's Proposed Rule Limits Advance Waivers to Yet-to-Be-Conceived Inventions

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.23.14

Earlier this month, NASA proposed to amend its patent regulations to require contractors requesting an advance waiver of the government's domestic rights in inventions made under a NASA contract to identify with specificity any inventions or classes of inventions that the contractor "believes will be made under the contract." Thus, in order to obtain an effective waiver, the contractor must predict what "inventions or classes of inventions" the contractor might make under aNASA contract, which, given the unpredictable nature of R&D efforts, may not cover the inventions that the contractor actually develops.


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 03.24.26

California Considering A Massive Expansion of Its Antitrust Laws

Legislative efforts to significantly expand California’s antitrust laws are working their way through the state legislature. The most comprehensive overhaul is Assembly Bill 1776 — the Competition and Opportunity in Markets for a Prosperous, Equitable and Transparent Economy (COMPETE) Act, introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, on March 23, 2026. AB 1776 is modeled closely after draft legislation recommended by the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) in December. AB 1776 would not only significantly expand potential liability for single-firm conduct and monopolization but would also explicitly decouple California antitrust analysis from certain federal standards. Companies doing business in California should pay close attention to AB 1776 because of its potentially dramatic impact, including increased exposure to antitrust litigation and increased compliance costs....