Mergers and acquisitions are back in the headlines. Following two years of sharp decline, deal making increased 12 percent in 2010, according to Bloomberg. Cross-border deals shot up 41 percent. With companies sitting on record cash war chests, the trend looks likely to continue. A small sampling of recent activity: Sanofi-Aventis completed its $20.1 billion… Continue Reading
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Informed Advertisers: How to disclose information online and on mobile platforms
Posted on from MoFo Tech Fall/Winter 2011Issued in 2000, the Federal Trade Commission’s “Dot Com Disclosures” document helps online businesses avoid deception with guidance on how to disclose “in a clear and conspicuous way” information material to any form of consumer interaction with its products or services. As D. Reed Freeman, Jr., a Morrison & Foerster partner focused on consumer protection… Continue Reading
When will mobile payments finally make it to the U.S.?
Posted on from MoFo Tech Fall/Winter 2011In some parts of the world, paying for items with your smartphone is old news. But when will mobile payments come stateside? That depends on how broadly you define m-commerce. “Anything you can do online with your laptop”—buy products, check bank accounts—“people will increasingly do over their mobile phones,” says Nick Holland, senior analyst with… Continue Reading
Biotech’s Reprieve: A federal panel rules that isolated DNA really are different
Posted on from MoFo Tech Fall/Winter 2011The biotech industry has been built on three decades of gene patenting, so it was thrown for a loop a year ago when a federal judge ruled that DNA isolated from the body were “products of nature” and therefore could not be patented. On July 29 a federal appeals court overturned that ruling against Myriad… Continue Reading
Could seaweed be the ideal biofuel source?
Posted on from MoFo Tech Fall/Winter 2011For decades, biofuel companies have turned to food crops, especially corn, to make the bioethanol that is added to gasoline to power trucks and cars. But the resulting price pressures on food, coupled with the large tracts of land needed to produce the fuel in a meaningful way, has led to a hunt for next-generation… Continue Reading