Is patent law still applicable if the breacher is doing so under a non-profit initiative? If so is the law exactly the same in both instances?
The actions that constitute patent infringement do not depend upon whether or not the infringer is a nonprofit or not. Disgorgement of profits is one possible remedy for patent infringement, and if the entity made less profits than a for profit company might have under similar circumstances, from the infringement, that particular remedy would be likely to be smaller. But, this would not preclude other remedies such as a reasonable royalty or profits lost by the patent holder due to reduced sales, or injunctive relief.
Ideas (methods of playing, game mechanics, strategy, goals) cannot be protected by copyright. But any part of a creative work can. So, no copying of drawings, patterns, images, sounds, or the element. I suppose copying the software code is not an issue here, but it can, obviously, also not be copied. And nothing in your game can look like someone's else trademark.
There is no real answer to that question at this point. If on filed such a suit, it would probably be under a negligence theory. You would sue: Forbes, because they're the website the user visited? The ad network that provided a vector for infection and didn't properly check their content? The makers of the ad, because they made the ad with malicious intent? and anyone else who might have been negligent. You then have to prove they were negligent. Can the user sue the responsible party for damages? You can sue anyone for anything. The problem is winning. Does it make a difference whether the user has taken due diligence with software updates and patches? It might. Contributory negligence would be an obvious defense to such a suit.
Is there any legal doctrine whereby E's agreement with A continued to apply to E in his work for company N? No, because the parties to the non-compete agreement were Employee E and company A, not the human who owned and sold A. What about B? Do they have any standing to block E's going to work for a B's customer? No. My rationale is that the decisions you describe result in a waiver of the non-compete clause. An employment relation between B and E never existed. Thus, the only vestige of B's non-compete rights binding E that could have been preserved stem from E's former employment at A. However, that vestige disappeared at the instant B --apropos of the hospital project-- waived its non-compete clause with N. Given B's waiver with regard to N, N's failure to establish a non-compete clause with E enables the latter to conduct business with (or accept employment at) the hospital. If anything, B would have standing to sue N for negligence or related torts. But neither B nor N has any viable non-compete claims against E.
Florida bar membership is something that can be determined from public records to see if he is an attorney or not. I would be stunned if he was not. It could be that he was an enrolled patent agent prior to being admitted to the practice of law and has never updated the record. Alternatively, it could simply be that there was a data entry error. No large database is 100% accurate. For most purposes, the rights of an enrolled patent agent and an attorney admitted to patent law practice are the same in PTO practice, so correcting this error (assuming that it is one), even if it was discovered, wouldn't be an urgent priority.
What are exactly the legal consequences of "All rights reserved"? Almost none. You have to explicitly grant copyright rights. You don't even need the Copyright notice for them to apply. My "almost" is because the notice makes it harder for somebody to argue "they didn't realize". Do I still need an additional SW License Agreement or is the Copyright notice above + a Disclaimer of liability sufficient? If this is free software (I know you said it isn't), do yourself (and everyone else) a favour by picking a license you like. Preferably either GPL or MIT (depending on your taste). There are far too many free licenses already. Please don't add another. (It also makes it much easier for any user of your software: "Oh yeah, GPL v2. We understand that. We can use it." as opposed to "What are the implications of using this one??" As this is not free software, I think you need a paid-for lawyer (who understands IPR in your juridiction.) Edit: In principle, I believe you don't need anything. The code is copyright, so the customer can't do anything with it (without explicit permissions that you haven't granted). However if the customer doesn't realize that or thinks you won't mind, you then have to go to court to enforce your rights (and probably end up with a disgruntled customer). A short, clear, license will make it clear to the customer what they are allowed to do, and save all that aggravation.
Your client is confused about how copyright law works (at least in the United States and virtually every other country I've ever heard about copyright in). If I were guessing, they read something like this from the United States Copyright Office: The copyright in a derivative work covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work. Protection does not extend to any preexisting material, that is, previously published or previously registered works or works in the public domain or owned by a third party. and figured that because it's a derivative work, the copyright only covers the additions and changes they make, and there's no copyright protection for the original work. This misunderstands the law: the original work still has its own copyright (assuming it hasn't expired), and permission from the holder of the copyright on the original work is required to create that derivative work in the first place*. The copyright on the derivative work is separate—that is, both copyrights exist in parallel. * Some exceptions, such as fair use, exist, but would be unlikely to apply to the situation you describe.
Tell whatever lawyer is drafting the "official paperwork" about the problem and ask if it is covered or if you need to change the text or add a rider. If neither company competes, a mutual release/license of existing shared code should be perfectly manageable for an experienced attorney.