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Holland & Knight  Assists Client in Acquisition of MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, Illinois

CHICAGO – A team of Holland & Knight attorneys, led by Chicago Partner Anne Murphy, today completed a transaction in which client MSMC Investors LLC acquired St. Francis Hospital and Health Center from SSM Health Care. The historic 410-bed hospital, founded in 1905, was slated for closure after earlier efforts to find a buyer were unsuccessful. The acquisition was successfully completed on an unusually aggressive timetable. The hospital is the largest employer in Blue Island, and is known for its high quality service and excellence in cardiac care.

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Environment: Newsletter - Fourth Quarter 2008

Barack Obama’s election as the next president of the United States should bring substantial changes to the last eight years of environmental policy and regulation. President-elect Obama ran a successful campaign, with clearly expressed views on climate change, land use, clean air, renewable resources and clean energy technology. With the new Obama Administra­tion comes a new opportunity to revise and influence our country’s environmental laws and policies. This article describes Obama’s publicly available position on environ­mental issues and overviews the probable regulatory and legislative policies for the next four years.

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Government Contracts
Newsletter - Third Quarter 1999
 
In this Issue...
Protection of Data Rights
 
 September 1, 1999
 

A recent U.S. Court of Federal Claims' (COFC) decision demonstrates the importance of a government contractor documenting its rights in technical data. The case, FN Manufacturing v. United States, was first reported in the Fourth Quarter 1998 Holland & Knight Government Contracts Newsletter. In a 1998 decision, the COFC found that the government could agree, as part of a negotiated settlement of a data rights dispute, to award a sole source contract for related manufacturing work, if the settlement agreement did not impermissibly bargain away government rights in technical data. After hearing evidence on the reasons for the government's decision, the court, in August 1999, found that the government's assessment of the legal rights of the government and its contractor to the technical data was reasonable.

Colt's Manufacturing Company claimed rights to certain technical data based on technology pre-existing a licensing agreement with the government. The evidence presented to the court supported Colt's position. But, equally as important, the court agreed that Colt's took steps to protect its rights to the pre-existing data through correspondence, negotiation of contract language, and making contract deliverables with appropriate restrictive legends.

This case illustrates the right way for a contractor to protect its intellectual property. Unfortunately, all too often, contractors, especially those new to government contracting, fail to take the necessary steps to safeguard their property interests. Such oversights can not only cause them to forfeit competitive advantage, it can also result in the loss of valuable intellectual property rights.