Cancer survivor Elizabeth Wagner was presented with the Volunteer of the Year Award and a $2500 scholarship April 13, 2010 during the Leadership Awards Luncheon at the Beverly Hills Country Club in Los Angeles by the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators, a professional association for legal managers. 

Battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, for 1 year, Wagner, of Long Beach, said of the award “I am so honored to receive this award and despite health-related challenges, I have thoroughly enjoyed giving back to the community through volunteering.”

Wagner was honored for her continued involvement and dedication to the association and to the community. She supports the GLA ALA Justice Jog, AIDS Life Cycle and Tour De Palm Springs Charity Ride.  

“Wagner is a role model to GLA ALA.  She inspires everyone she meets to get moving and get involved,” says Jean Jewell, CLM, a past recipient of Volunteer of the Year Award.

Wagner, the Legal Administrator of Kegel, Tobin & Truce in Los Angeles, CA, serves as the Programs Chair for the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators (GLA ALA).

The international President of the Association of Legal Administrators, Susan French Koran keynoted, and Mary McDonnell was installed as the 2010 GLA ALA board President. 

The scholarship received is an award for travel, hotel and registration to the Association of Legal Administrators annual conference in Boston sponsored by First Legal.

ABOUT GLA ALA: The Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators (GLA ALA) is a 350-person nonprofit membership organization that provides educational opportunities, community service, and exchange of information to improve the quality and professionalism of management in legal services organizations. For more information, visit www.glaala.org.

A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property

United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet issued the 152-page decision, which invalidated seven patents related to the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, whose mutations have been associated with cancer.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York joined with individual patients and medical organizations to challenge the patents last May: they argued that genes, products of nature, fall outside of the realm of things that can be patented. The patents, they argued, stifle research and innovation and limit testing options.

Myriad Genetics, the company that holds the patents with the University of Utah Research Foundation, asked the court to dismiss the case, claiming that the work of isolating the DNA from the body transforms it and makes it patentable. Such patents, it said, have been granted for decades; the Supreme Court upheld patents on living organisms in 1980. In fact, many in the patent field had predicted the courts would throw out the suit.

But online auction site operator eBay won significant victories in rulings by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said it did not engage in trademark infringement or trademark dilution in its use of jeweler Tiffany & Co.'s trademarks. Those rulings upheld the findings of a lower court judge.

Tiffany sued eBay in 2004, saying eBay engaged in trademark infringement, trademark dilution and false advertising because most items that sellers list for sale as genuine Tiffany products on its sites were fakes.

The appeals court left in place a finding by the lower court that eBay did not violate false advertising laws but returned the case to the judge to consider that issue again.

The three-judge panel said in its written ruling that it had difficulty with the lower court's reliance in its ruling on eBay's assertions that it did not know which listings offered counterfeit Tiffany goods. The 2nd Circuit noted that eBay advertised the goods sold through its site as Tiffany merchandise.

Microsoft on Thursday lost its bid for an en banc appeal in a patent case against i4i.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals refused Microsoft's request to hear the case with a full panel of judges. The case stems from a battle over an XML editor in Word, which i4i said infringed on one of its patents.

"We're disappointed with the decision," Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs for Microsoft said in a statement. "As far as next steps, we continue to believe there are important matters of patent law that still need to be properly addressed, and we are considering our options for going forward."

Loudon Owen, chairman of Toronto-based i4i, said the company "is delighted by this ruling."

A filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court charges the officer, Michael Hunter, 33, of Slidell, with one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one count of misprision of a felony.

The charges are part of a deal under which Hunter has agreed to help in the investigation of a cover-up after police shot six people — killing two — at the Danziger Bridge in September 2005, according to the person familiar with the case, who was not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hunter is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on April 7. He faces a possible maximum sentence of eight years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Townsend Myers, a lawyer for Hunter, wouldn't immediately comment.

Hunter remains on the force, but he is assigned to desk duty. Police spokesman Bob Young said Tuesday that Hunter was expected to resign before pleading guilty.

Michael Lohman, a retired lieutenant, and Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former detective, earlier pleaded guilty to participating in the cover-up.

Atlanta law firm King & Spalding LLP has won a $700 million judgment for Chevron Corp. in an arbitration between the energy giant and the government of Ecuador.

An international tribunal ruled that Ecuador must pay damages for delaying court rulings on commercial disputes with Chevron subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. for more than a decade.

The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague resolves some Texaco claims against the Ecuador government dating as far back as 1991.

The court determined that by refusing to rule on Texaco's claims, Ecuador violated international law by breaching an investment treaty with the United States.

The $700 million in damages includes principal and interest dating to Dec. 22, 2006, when Chevron and Texaco initially filed the arbitration. Further hearings will determine whether Ecuador owes more for taxes, interest and costs.

Chevron and other energy companies have additional arbitration actions pending against the Ecuador government. 

Before a federal judge, Justice Department prosecutors will lay out the dirty laundry of the company best known for its elegant Mercedes-Benz autos: a pattern of bribery that for many decades has helped fuel the company's sales and illicitly added millions of dollars to its profits. As a result, the company has agreed to pay $185 million in fines.

According to court papers filed March 24, the company's board 11 years ago adopted an integrity code with anti-bribery provisions. The problem is, Daimler failed to enforce it; many Daimler executives actively resisted it, and improper payments continued until 2008.

The court papers provide a case study of how executives at one of the world's blue chip companies responded when governments said "no" to bribery.

Of course, Daimler, through its subsidiaries, is hardly the first corporate giant to be caught paying off foreign officials to get contracts.

In December 2008, for example, engineering company Siemens AG agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines in Germany and the U.S. after being accused of bribing officials with suitcases stuffed with money.

Ten years earlier, Germany ratified an international anti-bribery agreement; an implementing law took effect in early 1999.