Foley Hoag LLP announced that well-known patent litigator Donald R. Ware became chair of the firm's expanded Intellectual Property Group and Dana Gordon, a registered patent attorney and scientist, became deputy chair.

The reorganized and expanded IP Group combines several historically strong disciplines in the firm and brings them under one umbrella. The IP Group, comprised of over 80 professionals, includes lawyers, scientists, engineers, medical doctors and other practitioners experienced in patent prosecution, patent litigation, technology transfer, IP due diligence and strategies, copyright and trademark prosecution, and trade secret litigation.

"We know our clients want efficiency, responsiveness, and a broad knowledge of cutting-edge technology issues. They want their lawyers to be immersed in their business and industry and to understand all aspects of their intellectual property needs, " said Donald R. Ware, chair of the practice. "Our multi-disciplinary approach allows us to serve our clients in a more powerful and synergistic way."

"The breadth and depth of our IP Group allow us to help clients shape an intellectual property strategy to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace," said deputy chair Dana M. Gordon. "That capability is particularly important in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, areas in which we are deeply rooted."

Don, also a former member of the firm's Executive Committee, specializes in biomedical patent litigation including recombinant DNA, monoclonal antibodies, small molecule compounds, drug delivery, molecular diagnostics, research tool patents, and medical devices. He represents some of the world's leading biotechnology companies and academic institutions. Don has been recognized as a leading IP lawyer in Best Lawyers in America®, Chambers USA: the Client's Guide, PLC Which Lawyer? and Global Counsel 3000. He holds his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Harvard University. For more information, click here.

Dana is a registered patent attorney, handling matters involving organic chemistry, including synthetic organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, molecular diversity, materials science, biochemistry and molecular biology. His client list includes many of the country's leading academic and private research institutions. Dana holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Yale University, and his law degree from Boston College Law School. For more information, click here.

Foley Hoag has long been a presence in the IP area, having served clients in the technology and life sciences industries for decades.  In 2006, the firm launched its Emerging Enterprise Center, located in the heart of New England's "Technology Corridor" to focus on the unique needs - including intellectual property - of the entrepreneurial community.  The IP practice is consistently ranked among top firms by leading publications such as Chambers USA and Legal 500.

About Foley Hoag

Foley Hoag provides comprehensive legal services to clients throughout the United States and around the world. We serve a wide range of industries including biopharma, energy and utilities, financial services, manufacturing, and technology. With 250 lawyers located in Boston, Washington, DC, and the Emerging Enterprise Center in Waltham, MA, we provide creative solutions and results-oriented advice in the areas of bankruptcy, restructuring and workouts; corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and IPOs; labor and employment; litigation; environmental issues and land use; government strategies; intellectual property; tax, trusts and estates; and white collar and business crimes.

For more information, visit www.foleyhoag.com.

Another co-founder, Stephen Lawrence, previously pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy. In a plea deal, Mr. Lefebvre agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify if necessary. He also agreed to be partly responsible for the $100 million the government is seeking in restitution.

Although the conspiracy charge carries a potential prison term of up to five years, cooperation in the case is likely to greatly reduce any potential sentence.

The government has said that nearly all of the $5.1 billion in transactions processed in the first half of 2006 involved online gambling, and most of the revenue was generated by American customers.

The Commission said in February last year it had settled a monopoly abuse case with De Beers, which is 45 percent owned by mining conglomerate Anglo American, after the company agreed to halt the purchase of rough diamonds from Alrosa from 2009.

The Commmission said at the time the move would pave the way for more competition in the supply of rough diamonds.

"The Court takes the view in the present case that the complete prohibition of all commercial relations between the two parties with effect from 2009 is manifestly disproportionate," the court said.

The Commission said it would study the ruling carefully.

De Beers accounted for about half the world diamond market in 2005. Alrosa extracts nearly a quarter of the world's diamonds.

Ruiz was condemned for the July 14, 1992, fatal shooting of 29-year-old Theresa Rodriguez, killed in the garage at her home as she was getting out of her car and with her husband, Michael, and his brother, Mark, at the scene.

"I didn't think I was going to get a stay," Ruiz told prison officials. "I guess you could say I'm happy."

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons, who described Ruiz as "genuinely at a loss for words," said the prisoner "didn't seem like he had processed it yet.

"He apparently was expecting to go. He expected his execution to be carried out," she said.

Ruiz, who had a history of alcohol and drug dependency, implicated the brothers for hiring him for what authorities said was their plan to collect more than $250,000 in Theresa's life insurance.

The Rodriguez brothers eventually agreed to a plea deal, accepting life prison terms. But Michael Rodriguez later joined Ruiz on death row as one of the notorious Texas Seven, a group of inmates who escaped from a South Texas prison in 2000 and killed a Dallas-area police officer during a Christmas Eve sporting goods store holdup. He's awaiting execution and recently asked that all his appeals be dropped, but has no date for his lethal injection.

Ruiz's lawyers argued that a state-appointed lawyer in earlier appeals failed to identify Ruiz's substance abuse and poor childhood as mitigating evidence jurors should have been allowed to consider before they decided on a death sentence. A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit court, in a 2-1 vote, said in granting the stay that it needed more time to review the case.

The Ruiz case illustrated what lawyers Morris Moon and Chris Gober contended was the state's "knowing and deliberate indifference to a system" that failed to permit a proper review of death row convictions.

The arguments focusing on what they argued was shoddy legal help during crucial initial appeals failed to convince the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review his case.

"He's got rights but nobody ever talks about the victim and her rights because she's dead," said a disappointed Yolanda Dolmolin, the slaying victim's sister. "And all that's gotten lost in the last 15 years."

She and another sister and brother were among witnesses who had been waiting for several hours to see Ruiz die.

The shooting at the Rodriguez home in San Antonio came after Ruiz made two earlier unsuccessful attempts. After shooting her once in the head with a .357-caliber Magnum pistol, he ran to a car waiting for him on the street and drove off. Mark Rodriguez already had paid him $1,000, then gave him another $1,000 after the job was finished.

Joe Ramon, now 34, who accompanied Ruiz the night of the shooting, and Robert Silva, also 34, identified as the intermediary who put the Rodriguez brothers in touch with Ruiz, also wound up with life prison sentences.

Ruiz was arrested after a telephone tip to authorities and after Theresa Rodriguez's employer, the insurance firm USAA, offered a $50,000 reward for information about her slaying.

While in the Bexar County Jail awaiting trial, authorities believe Ruiz joined the Texas Syndicate, a notorious prison gang, and was involved in several disturbances resulting in assaults on officers and other inmates.

Scheduled to die next is Lonnie Johnson, 44, set for lethal injection July 24 for the shooting deaths of two Harris County teenagers and theft of their truck almost 17 years ago.

The first surgeon-general appointed by US President George Bush has accused his Administration of political interference and muzzling him on issues such as embryonic stem cell research.

Dr Richard Carmona, a Bush nominee who served from 2002 to 2006, is one of a growing list of present and former Administration officials to charge that politics often trumped science within what had previously been largely nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

Dr Carmona told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that political appointees routinely scrubbed his speeches for politically sensitive content and blocked him from speaking out on public health matters.

The Administration, he said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells; emergency contraception; sex education; or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to water down a landmark report on second-hand smoke, he said.

Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke can cause immediate harm.

Dr Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican candidates.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalised or simply buried," he said. "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalising the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds."

A former professor of surgery and public health at the University of Arizona, Dr Carmona said he was told not to speak out during the national debate over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which President Bush opposes.

"Much of the discussion was being driven by theology, ideology, (and) preconceived beliefs that were scientifically incorrect," he said. "I thought, this is a perfect example of the surgeon-general being able to step forward, educate the American public … I was told the decision had already been made — 'stand down, don't talk about it.' That information was removed from my speeches."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto rejected claims of political interference, saying Dr Carmona had all the support he needed to carry out his mission. "As surgeon-general, Dr Carmona was given the authority and had the obligation to be the leading voice for the health of all Americans," Mr Fratto said. "It's disappointing to us if he failed to use his position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation."

Dr Carmona said that when the Administration touted funding for abstinence-only education, he was prevented from discussing research on the effectiveness of teaching about condoms as well as abstinence. Officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organisation's longtime ties to a "prominent family" that he refused to name.

"I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Dr Carmona said.

When asked after the hearing if that "prominent family" was the Kennedys, Dr Carmona responded: "You said it. I didn't."

The Supreme Court also has issued recent rulings that could make it tougher for investors to bring class-action claims against corporations. In one case, the court said that plaintiffs must show convincing evidence that fraud occurred or else a lawsuit can be dismissed at the pre-trial stage.

Fifty-nine federal securities cases requesting class-action status were filed in the first six months of this year, down 42 percent from an average mid-year filing rate of 101 from the 1996-to-2005 period, according to the study by legal research firm Cornerstone Research and Stanford University Law School.

Courts must certify lawsuits as class-actions. Many cases end up getting tossed out by judges before they reach that stage. If class-actions do get certified, the vast majority end up getting settled rather than going to trial.

The number of filings this year was up slightly from 53 cases in the same period in 2006, but it still marks the fourth consecutive six-month period with below average filings, the report found.

"We've now had two years worth of extremely low filing activity," said Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor. "This is starting to look like a permanent shift, not a transitory phenomenon."