Intellectual Property Law

Boehner Abdicates, Along With House Republicans

Posted on December 27, 2012
CNN reports, “Obama, congressional leaders to discuss impending fiscal cliff - CNN.com,” in coverage similar to that of so much other of the attention-addled media. For the last several weeks, we have been plastered with coverage of whether Boehner and Obama can reach a deal...

Writing Wrong Kirtsaeng Headlines

Posted on October 31, 2012
After the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., on October 29, 2012, many of the reports contained some inaccuracies, and some got it generally right. But who writes the wrong headlines? Even when the story was basically correct, the headlines tended to be off base...

Fuck the “F-Word”

Posted on June 25, 2012
The Supreme Court’s ruling in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. fizzled rather than sizzled, as far as First Amendment issues are concerned. In essence, the Court did not bother to assess the First Amendment constitutionality of the FCC’s latest iteration of its indecency rules because, having determined that the FCC failed to give fair [...

Infringing Trip to Fridge During Commercial?

Posted on May 24, 2012
Litigation ensues over allowing viewers to automatically hop over commercials using Dish's "Auto Hop"

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Copyrighted Recipe for Scrambled Eggs

Posted on May 29, 2011
Lawyers often say "you can't copyright a recipe." The myth was so persistent that I not only authored a copyrighted work (John T. Mitchell, Copyrighted Recipe for Scrambled Eggs), but obtained U.S. Copyright Reg. No. TX0007357813 to prove that the U.S...

Ninth Circuit Gets Used CDs Right

Posted on January 04, 2011
In a case we had been watching for some time (UMG v. Augusto), the Ninth Circuit finally upheld the district court’s holding that self-serving restrictions placed on so-called “promotional” CDs could not limit the right of the owner of the CD to sell it without permission...

Dirty Deals Abridge Freedom of Speech

Posted on December 31, 2010
California ban of violent video games must go, headlines the piece by Activision Blizzard’s George Rose in the San Francisco Chronicle. While Rose is correct that California’s censorship law is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court should bury it so deep no other states keep trying to get away with such a travesty, one portion of [...

Rasmussen?s Polling Disinformation

Posted on December 30, 2010
Honest polling may or may not be interesting. Interesting polling may or may not be honest. Rasmussen pulled off the latter in a poll containing disinformation in the questions, and trumpeted baseless findings. A recent Rasmussen Reportclaims that ?only 21% of the respondents want the FCC to regulate the Internet...

Cancer Free in 12 Hours

Posted on December 07, 2010
Cancer free 12 hours from now! That?s the plan, at least. Like so many serious illnesses, prostate cancer is spoken about in whispers, but from all I?ve read recently, perhaps more lives could be saved if we just talked more openly, thereby increasing awareness, prevention, and earlier diagnosis...

An International Comparison of Cell Phone Plans and Prices Shows Discrimination Against Women and Minorities

Posted on October 15, 2010
Cell phone carriers in the United States are engaged in widespread price discrimination adversely affecting women and racial minorities because they are disproportionately charged substantially higher prices due to price discrimination between prepaid and post-paid cell phone plans

Strategic Plan to Combat IP Theft Falls Short

Posted on June 23, 2010
This morning, the White House released the Administration?s First Joint Strategic Plan to Combat intellectual Property Theft by Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel. It falls so far short of the mark that the best news of all is that it is called the “First” such Plan...

Certiorari granted in Costco v. Omega

Posted on April 19, 2010
Normally, when you die, your heirs can receive your books, magazines, iPods, laptops, CDs, DVDs, photographs, sketches, automobiles, home appliances, power tools, Omega watches, shampoo bottles, paper, canvas, and any other articles in which a copyrighted work as been lawfully reproduced...

Lending Your Textbook, Watch or Car Illegal?

Posted on September 29, 2009
In the anniversary year of the 1909 codification of the First Sale Doctrine, two cases make news, as book publishers and watch makers try to create a loophole that will give them control over their products long after they have sold them. Even lending a watch or a textbook, or giving it to charity, would require their permission, if they get their way.

Judy Krug - Thanks for the good work

Posted on April 15, 2009
About 20 years ago, Judy Krug changed my attitude toward librarians. Raised in a childhood environment in which librarians were viewed as disciplinarians, my adult exposure to librarians as resourceful facilitators of my access to knowledge hardly shook that early childhood impression — until I met Judy...

Four Days in November: Reflections From the Gut

Posted on November 06, 2008
Morning of November 5, 2008, I reluctantly crawl out of bed, extend checkout time long enough to get breakfast, and contemplate the 3-hour drive back from Hampton, Virginia to my home in Maryland. I emerge from the Holiday Inn elevator to receive the well trained ? and rote ? greeting from the 5 hotel staff [...

Owner of Legal Software Can Sell on eBay

Posted on May 22, 2008
For a long time now, owners of lawfully made copies of software have been subjected to baseless claims that software is “licensed, not sold,” and therefore the right the Copyright Act gives to owners of lawfully made copies to sell them is trumped by the license...

Observations on Professor Patry’s making available observations

Posted on April 07, 2008
Excellent observations by Professor William Patry, in The Patry Copyright Blog: The recent making available cases commenting on the three recent cases ruling in one way or another on the ?making available? theory of liability for infringement of the exclusive right of distribution without actually making a physical distribution...

Gray Market Piracy? Come on!

Posted on January 06, 2008
I nearly fell out of my chair when I read CRM News: Strategy: Is Your Supply Chain Going Gray? Frustrated that the Supreme Court has made is so that “Copyright lawyers won’t save you” because the Copyright Act makes it clear that copyrights do not extend to control over re-distribution of lawfully made copies owned [...

Law Journal Succumbs to Doublespeak on Intenet Deregulation v. Regulation

Posted on October 19, 2007
The article by Shannon P. Duffy appeasing in Law.com’s 3rd Circuit Upholds FCC’s Deregulation of High-Speed Internet Access succumbs to the regulation/de-regulation doublespeak pressed by the Internet regulators. I would have hoped a law rag would have been sharp enough to avoid such gullibility...

Parents Need Relief from Parenting When it Comes to Video Games, says Parents Advocacy Group

Posted on September 13, 2007
My jaw dropped open when I read the press release of the Parents Television Council, PTC Applauds Gov. Schwarzenegger for Appealing Violent Video Game Ruling, in which the PTC President suggests, by implication, that parents need not be involved in their children’s decisions to purchase video games, so long as they are not rated M [...

UMG v. Augusto: Who really owns the copy?

Posted on August 10, 2007
Universal Music Group (UMG) has taken steps calculated to exercise control over copies (”phonorecords”) it may not own. In one case, Universal Republic is said to be threatening music retailers selling imported copies of the album it plans to release this fall...

Right to Rent Audiobooks

Posted on January 29, 2007
It has long been established that the owner of a lawfully made copy of a copyrighted work has the absolute right, even over the strong objection of the copyright owner, to re-distribute that copy by any means, including sale, gift, lending or rental. This principle was developed by the courts in what has become known [...

Misunderstood Movie Download Add-On

Posted on November 30, 2006
When Warner Brothers backed Wal-Mart's plan to offer movie downloads along with a DVD, critics booed, but missed the point.

Terrorism by Copyright Infringement?

Posted on September 29, 2006
In testimony before the House Committee on International Relations’ Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Frank C. Urbancic, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism U.S. Department of State, declared: “Hizballah supporters and sympathizers are also involved in a number of illegal activities, including smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, fraud, intellectual property piracy, and other [...

Culver City Offers Free Wi-fi ‘EnterNot’ Access

Posted on August 29, 2006
Culver City is offering public wi-fi access to the Internet with two big caveats: It’s not really the Internet, and to use it you agree to give up your civil rights. That’s right. First, they offer Internet access, but you must agree to “limited” Internet access...

HarperCollins’ Defensive Offense — or Offensive Defense

Posted on August 03, 2006
It is hard to know what to make of HarperCollins? new initiative to allow book browsing. Bookstores have long permitted customers to browse books on display ? a shrink-wrapped book is more likely to be passed over. For online shoppers, services like Amazon...

Harvard study jettisons original ideas, favors booing those who have them

Posted on April 04, 2006
?81% of a random sample of Mature-rated video games included content that was not noted on the game box.? So declares the press release crowing about findings of a study led by Associate Professor Kimberly Thompson of the Kids Risk Project at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.