Obama Signs Patent Reform Legislation; Attention Turns to PTO Funding, Rulemaking

Patent reform is now law. At a signing ceremony in front of veterans of the patent reform debate, as well as with teenagers with budding entrepreneurial aspirations, President Barack Obama signed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Sept. 16 in Alexandria, Va…

In First NLRB Social Media Ruling, ALJ Holds Facebook Posting Firings Violated Labor Act

An upstate New York nonprofit violated federal labor law when it fired five employees for griping on Facebook about a co-worker, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge decided in an opinion released Sept. 6…

OMB Clears Confidential Information Rule for Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

—The White House Office of Management and Budget Sept. 15 cleared a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that will guide electronics manufacturing and seven other broad industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions on whether their data will be considered confidential and thus not released to the public.

FDIC Clears Final Rules on ‘Living Wills,’ Sets Flexible Implementation Schedule

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Sept. 13 cleared a final rule on so-called living wills mandated for certain large banks and critical nonbank financial firms, along with some extra time to put those plans in place…