Top 10 Intellectual Property Headlines from North America A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit underscores the danger of assuming you can transfer IP licenses in a merger or business sale without the express consent of the licensor. Business methods received serious cross fire during today’s Bilski v. Kappos oral arguments. Justices from all sides of the bench peppered both parties regarding the extent to which broad business method claims are patent eligible subject matter. A recent ruling in a highly publicized case in the United States District Court for the Central District of California rejected an aggressive legal theory that could have led to broad criminalization of the breach of terms conditioning access to websites and other computerized information. On April 3, 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Google in a much-anticipated keyword case, Rescuecom v. Google. On November 9, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court (Court) heard oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos, No. 08-964, which is an appeal from the Federal Circuit's decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Employers are learning the hard way that gaining access to private employee information during workplace investigations can lead to lawsuits, liability and headaches. On July 1, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided an important trademark issue in favor of protecting the names of Indian tribes. The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday heard oral arguments in "Bilski v. Kappos", a case that could reshape the scope of what can be patented and that will almost certainly have broad implications for the patentability of business methods. Based on several market analisesperformed since the beginning of the millennium in Mexico, it hasbeen possible to identify a clear and constant growth in the use ofdomain names by the small and medium size companies of the country. Recent press reports regarding copyright termination notices filed by the heirs of famed comic book illustrator Jack Kirby as well as a recent decision by a federal District Court in a long-running case regarding termination notices filed by the heirs of "Superman" co-creator Jerome Siegel both serve as timely reminders of the substantial complexity of copyright and other intellectual property issues raised by the transfer of valuable intellectual property assets and the critical importance of | 
