Tsibouris Privacy + Technology Law Blog: July 2005

New contracts to add

New contracts to add to the list:

Standard Form Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar Development Agreement
Applebee's International, Inc.
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March 30, 2005

Standard Form Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar Franchise Agreement
Applebee's International, Inc.
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March 30, 2005

Franchise Agreement
Back Yard Burgers, Inc.
William N. Griffith
April 18, 2005

Area Development Agreement
Back Yard Burgers, Inc.
William N. Griffith
April 18, 2005

Franchise Agreement
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Inc.
---
July 12, 2005

Franchise Agreement
Texas Roadhouse, Inc.
---
June 16, 2004

Healthy Bites Grill Franchise Agreement
Health Express Franchise Company
The Myrick Group
March 29, 2004

Management Agreement - Innkeepers Hospitality
Equity Inns, Inc.
---
March 12, 2004

Purchase Agreement
Apple Six Hospitality, Inc.
Briad Lodging Group Somerset, LLC et al.
June 14, 2005

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Decide First, Spin Later

A great post from Fractals of Change:

We were having a small nuclear crisis in Vermont and Governor Richard Snelling convened a cabinet meeting which included me as Secretary of Transportation. “First,” he said, “we have to decide what the right thing to do is; then we’ll think about the politics. Otherwise we’ll just confuse ourselves.” I’ve never heard another politician say anything like that. (Link)

Hat tip, Felt Thoughts.

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Phillips Design: Affordable Web Site Development and Maintenance

I have developed a relationship with Phillips Design, which offers web site development and maintenance and an HTML e-mail service. Earl Phillips and I look forward to assisting each other's clients, and I am happy to encourage clients and readers of this blog to contact Earl.

Phillips Design also offers its popular "Stop 'Em Dead!" service. Earl and his team will scan and clean your system of viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, and other infections, along with installing programs to help your computer stay clean. This service is especially useful in today's electronic world, where new viruses, spyware, and other malware arrive everyday.

I have found Earl to be both amiable and knowledgeable, so I suggest you contact Phillips Design to discuss your needs, at earl@pdesign.net or (614) 764-0476.

Peter M. Hazelton, Esq., M.H.A.

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Lance Armstrong

Anyone else out there rivited to OLN's Tour de France coverage and Lance's quest for seven? He is truly amazing and an inspiration.

USA Today has the following editorial: Innovative Armstrong changes the way we compete.

The lesser-told story, though, is equally as intriguing and reveals powerful lessons for business. It is one of innovation. In short, Armstrong has changed the game forever. His impact on the professional peloton, the main pack of riders, is all-encompassing — at once technological, economic and social. He has changed how we train, how we prepare and how we compete. His techniques have become best practices. He continues to achieve breakthroughs and remain just out of reach of his closest competitors.

Why? Because like every great innovator, deeper principles drive his practices.

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The contract list, in blog form

See below in table form here.

Agreement for Number Portability Administration Center/Service Management System
Neustar, Inc.
Canadian LNP Consortium Inc.
June 28, 2005

Agreement for Operations Support Services
IBM
Equifax, Inc.
April 29, 2004

Application Hosting Agreement
Remedy Corporation
InsynQ
September 13, 2000

Application Hosting Agreement
Vcampus Corporation
US West Interprise America, Inc.
May 15, 2000

Application Hosting and Delivery Agreement
Donor Management, Inc.
InsynQ
October 23, 2000

Application Service Provider Agreement
IMPAC Medical Systems, Inc.
US Oncology, Inc.
November 8, 2002

Application Service Provider Agreement
TransactTools, Inc.
Archipalego, LLC
June 14, 2004

Application Service Provider Agreement
Corel Corporation
InsynQ
October 23, 2000

Application Service Provider Software License Agreement
Stellent, Inc.
Active IQ Technologies, Inc.
January 4, 2002

Application Services Agreement
International Petroleum Exchange of London Limited
LIFFE Services Company Limited
June 6, 2005

Development, License and Hosting Agreement
American Airlines, Inc.
Orbitz LLC
December 16, 2003

Framework for Technology Collaboration Agreement
Amazon.com, Inc.
Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc.
June 29, 2005

Intellectual Property and Technology Agreement
TGC, Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
September 9, 2004

Licensing and Marketing Agreement
Comcast STB Software DVR, LLC
Tivo, Inc.
April 15, 2005

Microsoft Application Services Agreement
MSLI, GP, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, Inc.
InsynQ
October 23, 2000

Service Bureau Software Services Agreement, Amended and Restated
E-TRX Limited
Hogg Robinson PLC
June 17, 2005

Software Development Agreement
E-TRX Limited
Hogg Robinson PLC
June 17, 2005

Software License Agreement
E-TRX Limited
Hogg Robinson PLC
June 17, 2005

Software Support Agreement
E-TRX Limited
Hogg Robinson PLC
June 17, 2005

Symantec Service Provider Agreement, Amended and Restated
Symantec Corporation
Brightmail, Inc.
April 29, 2004

Symantec Service Provider Agreement, Amendment One to Amended and Restated
Symantec Corporation
Brightmail, Inc.
April 29, 2004

Symantec Service Provider Agreement, Amendment Two to Amended and Restated
Symantec Corporation
Brightmail, Inc.
April 29, 2004

Teaming Agreement
ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd.
IBM United Kingdom Limited
August 11, 2004

Teaming Agreement
Project Performance Corporation
Catcher, Inc.
July 15, 2005

Teaming Agreement
Siemens Maintenance Services, LLC
Hi-Energy Technologies, Inc.
March 17, 2005

Vendor Agreement
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
April 15, 2002

Vendor Agreement, 1st Amendment
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
May 1, 2003

Vendor Agreement, 2nd Amendment
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
July 30, 2003

Vendor Agreement, 3rd Amendment
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
September 9, 2004

Vendor Agreement, 4th Amendment
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
December 10, 2004

Vendor Agreement, 5th Amendment
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Tivo, Inc.
April 15, 2005

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New contracts added

I just added links to publicly available contracts here. One day, I'd like the list to be as extensive and as organized as FindLaw's list.

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WiFi, Planes and Mount Rainier

Boeing recently conducted a WiFi test flight, with many famous tech bloggers aboard (Chris Pirillo, Eric Rice, Phil Torrone, Robert Scoble). Very cool. Internet access in the air.

But, perhaps the coolest thing coming out of the test flight is this video from Chris circling Mount Rainier.

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Competitive Intelligence and Classified Ads

Related to yesterday's Abercrombie wannabe post: Viewing your competitor's help wanted ads can be a good source of competitive intelligence. Here's what one firm says about analyzing classified ads:

Help-wanted ads are a source of often-overlooked information, according to Fuld: "They offer great clues about where a company is heading in its pursuit of markets and technologies. CareerPath.com http://www.careerpath.com/ and the Monster Board http://www.monsterboard.com/ are two sites that our analysts use all the time. Companies are between a rock and a hard place here. Most of them desperately need talented people, so they have to advertise their openings aggressively. But the more jobs they post, the more they expose themselves to people like us, who know how to analyze the postings. If you examine the kinds of backgrounds that a company looks for in its systems people, you can get a good sense of its technical infrastructure." Source: Gathering Competitive
Intelligence

The new Abercrombie, Hollister or Aeropostale?

It appears that a Miami company (who will remain nameless) wants to emulate the style of Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and Aeropostale. How do I know that? We'll they've got an ad looking for graphic artist who works for A&F. At the bottom of the ad is this:

Must have worked or working for Abercrombie, Hollister or Aeropostale.

What's interesting, is that the same company has ads in the New York and Miami for graphic artists, but does not have the requirement of having worked at those three companies. I wonder if they think Columbus graphic artist can only do the job if they worked for one of those three companies, but that NY and Miami graphic artists are so good that they don't need such experience.

Tounge and cheek aside, the real reason for this post is to raise the potential problems of actively recruiting and hiring your competitor's employees. I'm not saying the company is necessarily doing anything wrong, but just pointing out a potential problem for you to consider. Here's a fine article outlining the Seven Deadly IP Sins in Employee Hiring.

Other links:

California Supreme Court holds that a company "may be liable for intentional interference for having induced a competitor's at-will employee to quit and join the defendents."

When is Raiding a Competitor's Employee's Illegal?

Raiding the Competition ... Without Getting Sued

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New sites

New to Mallory & Tsibouris - CyberlawAudit.com and links to contracts found in the SEC's EDGAR database.

For you MS IE users, I apologize about the poor image quality of the logo. I authored the website in Mozilla Editor and they look great there. Any suggestions on how to optimize for IE would be appreciated.

-- Update --
Logo image "fixed." I created a white rectangle and placed the logo on top of that. This fixed the "tint" problem I had with the logo in IE. By the way, I use Inkscape as my graphics editor. Inkscape is an open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw that uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG).

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