2012 TAG State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia Report Road Show

March 7th, 2012
Events & Associations

Please join TAG Savannah as we welcome speaker John C. Yates of Morris, Manning & Martin LLP, who will present the findings of the 2012 TAG State of the Industry report. The full report is delivered annually in March at the Georgia Technology Summit in Atlanta.

The Details

Who: TAG Savannah and John C. Yates, Morris, Manning, and Martin LLP
What: 2012 TAG State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia Report Road Show
When: Monday, April 30, 8:00 AM
Where: Savannah Technical College 5717 White Bluff Road Savannah, GA 31405

Click here to register
There is no cost to attend this

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Harvard Business School Alumni Club of Atlanta Announces Finalists for 2012 New Venture Contest

March 1st, 2012
Events & Associations

Atlanta  – The Harvard Business School (HBS) Alumni Club of Atlanta has announced the finalists for the 2012 New Venture Contest. The competition, set in Atlanta, is designed to support promising new ventures founded by HBS graduates.

The finalists are:

• Gradsave
• LEAP – Life Engineered Antibody Products
• Merlin Mobility
• SmartPath Financial
• V4V – Veterans for Veterans
The Alumni New Venture Contest was created with two goals in mind: to identify promising new business ventures among the school’s entrepreneurial graduates, and to create a mechanism to connect alumni with HBS faculty and the global network of

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PART 4: Key Legal Questions to Consider when Starting and Growing a Tech Business

March 1st, 2012
MMM Tech Perspectives

What are the Top 10 legal questions to consider in starting and growing a tech business? Outlined below is question #4 in this series of questions a lawyer asks an entrepreneur to minimize liability and maximize profitability (view question #1 here, question #2 here and question #3 here). These questions address legal issues faced by tech companies through the business life cycle. While these questions may not apply to all companies, they’re a helpful road map to address legal pitfalls in building a successful tech business.

Following the question below, there are secondary questions designed

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Nuances of Trademark Protection: Policing, Bullying and Shaming

February 29th, 2012
Patents/IP

by:  John R. Harris

Trademark owners have a responsibility to enforce their trademark rights or lose them. Enforcement of trademark rights is sometimes called “policing” the mark. Trademarks must be actively used and defended, or the rights will evaporate. Registration alone is not enough. The owner of a trademark has to stop people from infringing its marks, even to the extent of going to court if necessary.

An effective trademark policing program allows a company to preserve its rights without resorting to litigation. This is usually accomplished by using a “watch” service to provide alerts for improper or

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SEMDA Annual Conference

February 28th, 2012
Events & Associations

Tuesday/Wednesday March 13-14, 2012
Global Learning Center, Atlanta

Register Now

The 6th annual Southeastern Medical Device Association Conference is specifically designed to meet the needs of the Southeast’s medical device industry – and the 2012 Conference will have more opportunities for you to grow your business and make meaningful connections than ever.

In response to feedback from past participants, the 2012 SEMDA Conference will be spread over two days and will include a cocktail reception. Free 1:1 partnering and plentiful opportunities for networking give you the maximum value for your investment of time and money.

The 2012 SEMDA Conference offers two tracks:

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Obama Budget Plan Proposes 29% Increase in Renewable Energy Funding

February 21st, 2012
Clean Tech/Green Energy

President Obama has renewed his proposal to cut over $40 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas and coal producers over the next decade in an attempt to spend more for alternate energy and conservation. The $3.8 trillion budget proposal represents a 29% increase in renewable energy funds in 2013, as compared to 2012.

As part of the budget proposal:

– the DOE is allotted $27.2 billion, $2.3 billion of which would go to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable energy for biofuels, advanced vehicles, renewable electricity and research and development.

– the USDA budget would decrease by 3% to $23 billion.

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SEC’s No-Action Letter: Good News for Pre-IPO Companies

February 20th, 2012
Tech IPO

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, “Corp Fin”, granted this no-action letter  regarding the use of restricted stock units for employees at pre-IPO companies under certain conditions without the company needing to register the securities under Section 12(g) of the ’34 Act. The letter provides comfort that without registration, and without limitation as to numbers of shares or of participants, companies may issue non-transferable restricted stock units to executives that would vest, and could be cashed out, in a US IPO or a sale of the company. The structure that the SEC Staff looked at involved units that

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