Coinbase, the self-proclaimed world’s most popular bitcoin wallet provider, announced on January 20th that it raised $75 million in a Series C financing, which brings Coinbase’s total capital raised to $106 million. The round was led by DFJ Growth, but also included three mainstream financial institutions: The New York Stock…
FinCEN issued an alert indicating that certain organizations and individuals have been circumventing various laws related to sports betting, including by permitting “third-party betting” and reminding the industry about the importance of applying a risk-based approach with respect to this issue and the need to implement reasonably designed AML programs…
In denying a motion for summary judgment of invalidity under Section 101, the court stated: “An inability to articulate an abstract idea to which claims are directed may be a clue that those claims satisfy Section 101.” The patent claims at issue related to management of online poker. Defendant challenged…
Too many companies/lawyers treat website Terms of Service (TOS) as boilerplate agreements that no one reads. Many companies simply put a link at the bottom of the homepage. This approach continues to prove ineffective, as courts are more frequently refusing to enforce TOS absent properly drafted terms and a requirement…
In comments on October 14, 2014, Ben Lawsky commented on changes to the proposed bitlicense regulations. The main points he made were these: Regarding who will be required to obtain a bitlicense, he said the focus will be financial intermediaries, not software developers or individual users. To the extent that…
On August 1, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released draft guidance that would exempt from premarket 510(k) review many low-risk medical devices–including certain mobile applications that can convert a cell phone into a medical device, such as a thermometer or a stethoscope. Although the guidance is not yet…
On Friday, Michael Dell, CEO of Austin-based Dell Inc., announced on twitter that Dell.com is now accepting Bitcoin as a direct payment option for consumers and small businesses in the U.S. Other major companies, such as Overstock and Expedia, began accepting Bitcoin earlier this year and have reported favorable results,…
The Federal Communications Commission’s Accessibility and Innovation Initiative will host an “Accessing Social Media” event on Thursday, July 17, 2014 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room in its headquarters located at 445 12th Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. The event will be webcast without open captioning. The event is open…
Today, we, along with our colleague Michael Heuga, published our client advisory titled New Canadian Anti-Spam Rules to Take Effect July 1, 2014. If your business uses “commercial electronic messages” to market to your customers and prospective customers in Canada, please be aware of Canada’s new anti-spam rules, which require, among…
Bitcoin mining firm GHash is reportedly consistently attaining over 51% of all of the hashing power of all Bitcoin miners. As a decentralized currency, Bitcoin depends on an open ledger called the “block chain” to track every transaction using the Bitcoin protocol. The integrity of the block chain is generally…