Many schools and libraries across the country rely upon the federal funding program known as the "E-rate," which will soon enter its seventh year. This popular program provides funding to schools and libraries for their telecommunications needs and is funded by taxes on all consumer telephone bills.

Over the last three decades, thousands of contaminated properties have been the subject of remediation activities by the government or by private parties. A very high percentage of these sites were impacted by the release of volatile chemicals to the soil and underlying ground water.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (the Court) recently issued a major ruling in the case of <I>Recording Industry Association of America Inc. v. Verizon Internet Services Inc., </I>D.C. Cir., No. 03-7015, 12/19/03, which limits the reach of the liberal subpoena provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).

Courts have long recognized that a company can use a competitor’s federally-registered trademark without liability for infringement, if the competitor’s use is a "fair use." The Trademark Act of 1946, commonly known as the Lanham Act, expressly permits fair use as an affirmative defense, but it applies only in limited circumstances – essentially when the competitor is accurately and in good faith describing its products, such as by stating that they are compatible with the trademarked