Austin Technology Law Blog : Texas Technology Lawyers & Attorneys for Copyright, Trademarks & Software Licensing in Houston, Dallas & Austin TX

One of initiatives contained in the newly passed healthcare reform bill is the move towards electronic health records.  This will obviously have a tremendous impact on data management by IT departments everywhere.  This article discusses some of the changes that we can expect after the "deluge of data."

"As the impact of the new law works its way through the healthcare system, Mark Bowker, analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said he expects to see more data center consolidation, greater challenges around database management and an uptick in desktop virtualization adoption.

Earlier this year, an ESG report found that the total 2010 healthcare IT spend will increase by 67 percent compared with last year. There also will be a 50 percent increase in new IT staff positions in 2010, ESG said."

The bill also contains potential IT opportunities in a number of other areas. 

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Most of us don't know that the rights of crime victims are enshrined in Article 1, Section 30 of the Texas Constitution.  Thankfully, we have some people in our community that look out for those of us that don't know these things.

Our friends, Jim Currier and Owen Mangold, have been active in this area for years and have helped many people through the non-profit organization Crime Victims First.  To raise funds and to raise awareness of victims' rights, CV1 is sponsoring Jam 4 Justice on April 25 at Scholz Garten.  You should go and have a good time.

While this is not a technology related topic, from time to time we like to give a shout out to our friends who are doing good work, like this.

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For over three decades, Microsoft has been arguably the most important and pervasive company in our day to day lives. But could the “Decade of Cloud Computing” end that reign? There is a very good article over at ZDnet.com examining that subject.  

"Under these conditions, how can we expect a company like Microsoft to welcome with open arms a Tsunami named Cloud Computing which will sweep away three quarters of its earnings and market valuation?" 

Microsoft is obviously too big to go away over night, but it will be interesting to see how it adapts to the changing industry over the next decade.

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Companies that handle or transfer data must be extremely careful that they are abiding by the laws of the jurisdictions that the data passes through.   Data protection issues will only become more prevalent with the increased use of cloud computing, since a company may not even actually know where the data is being stored.  The most contentious arena for this issue is definitely in the EU.  Data passing out of the European Union to other countries creates a headache for companies that must abide by its stringent rules.

Now the EU is cracking down on social sites such as Facebook:

"European regulators are investigating whether the practice of posting photos, videos and other information about people on sites such as Facebook without their consent is a breach of privacy laws. 

The probes by the German and Swiss privacy watchdogs are still preliminary and would not have immediate consequences elsewhere. However, Weichert said the issue is being discussed with other data protection officials in the 27-nation European Union, which in 2000 declared privacy a fundamental right that companies and governments must respect.

The European stance differs strongly from the self-regulatory, free market approach favored in the United States, where Web companies have flourished by offering users free services if they provide personal information to help advertising target them better, according to Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen."

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Google's tough luck with the Nexus One continued last week.  After reports of disappointing sales in the smartphone, Google learned that its trademark for Nexus One was denied by the USPTO. The mark was denied because of a "likelihood of confusion" with a previously registered mark. The mark at issue was Nexus owned by Integra Telecom Holdings, Inc., which used the mark to provide telecommunication services in the oil industry.  Google has a right to appeal the decision or seek out an agreement with Integra.

You should conduct a thorough search in your potential name.  Otherwise, you will invest a ton of time and money in a trademark and not even be able to use it. 

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“Cloud” computing has garnered a lot of attention lately. Not as much as the iPad, but sufficient buzz to warrant the examination of this phenomenon and to determine what impact, if any, it has on the legal landscape, i.e. is this sufficiently different to require new legal approaches and what aspects of agreements relating to cloud computing should be examined carefully with this delivery model?

Over the next few weeks in this blog, we will examine how we got to this point, how cloud computing differs from previous delivery models and how it is similar. We will look at the evolution of computing and the evolution of legal concepts to address such evolution and we will try to determine what changes in contract language and deal structure need to occur to address issues unique to cloud computing.

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Many people would be surprised to learn that they are bound by contracts several times throughout the day and they don’t even know it. Every time you visit a website you are generally bound by its terms and conditions even if you never actually see them.

A recent case out of Missouri highlighted the trend towards enforcing these types of agreements. In, Major v. McAllister, the court upheld a browsewrap agreement. A browsewrap agreement is one in which the user is never actually required to consent to the terms and conditions, but is usually behind a hyperlink at the bottom of the homepage. In that case, the user was presented with the browsewrap agreement at every page, and when she submitted her contact information to complete a purchase she was given the notice that by clicking through, she agreed to the terms and conditions. She never actually clicked through to read the terms and conditions of the website, and it happened to contain a forum selection clause that she would later dispute.

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