Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Our technology transactions, outsourcing, and commercial contracts team on October 30, 2024 held its annual industry summit in New York. The theme this year was Unleashing the Potential of Technology, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Attendees included in-house counsel and sourcing professionals across a number of industries, including representatives from the client and vendor side. The diverse audience led to highly interactive discussions among some of the leading voices in the tech and sourcing fields.

Use restrictions in software as a service (SaaS) agreements work in tandem with the scope of access and use rights provisions to clarify the scope of a user’s right to use a SaaS solution. These restrictions will be extremely important to the SaaS provider, however, consideration of such restrictions is also paramount for the users of the SaaS solution.

An essential feature for customers in outsourcing software licensing and arrangements is the provision of robust protection against any software that could embed and distribute malware. To address these concerns, the inclusion of a no-virus warranty has become a common expectation on customers’ side.

According to OECD data, by 2020 digital trade represented 25% of global trade, amounting to just under $5 trillion. Digitalization of economy is on the agenda for many national governments as they come to appreciate the transformative power of technology in reducing transactional expenses and improving the competitiveness of their economies.

On October 30, Morgan Lewis will be hosting the annual Tech & Sourcing Summit in New York. This full-day event will bring together our lawyers and industry leaders and conclude with a keynote speech by best-selling author and renowned futurist Dr. Daniel Susskind and a networking reception.

Mere months after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a final rule banning almost all worker noncompete clauses, the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted in Ryan LLC v. Federal Trade Commission the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motions, halting the noncompete rule for just those plaintiffs in that case. The court found that the FTC likely exceeded its statutory authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously.

As we continue to see AI steadily and increasingly be incorporated into service offerings, businesses should pay special attention to previously “standard” provisions when contracting for the provision and use of services that incorporate AI. This is especially true considering there may be situations where service providers use AI at some point in the workstream without the recipient even realizing.

In this blog post we explore build-operate-transfer (BOT) models in relation to businesses setting up offshore delivery centers, commonly becoming known as Global Capability Centers (GCCs).

Please join us for another Morgan Lewis Technology Marathon event. In this webinar, partner Doneld Shelkey and associate Jesse Taylor will explore the legal and technology issues that arise in the sports industry in connection with the use of artificial intelligence, digital sponsorships for events and in stadiums, and data security and personal privacy. They will be joined by Cameron Hammel, counsel at the Boston Red Sox.

A significant number of legacy software solutions are now incorporating generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), and most new software solutions have some form of GenAI capabilities. This is true across the majority of, if not all, industries and, as such, it is not surprising that we are seeing a large increase in GenAI-related queries from businesses that use, or are procuring, software.