Intellectual Property Law

Hardware trademark rejected in UK

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2006-08-22 20:27:38. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe Register reports: A businessman has failed to win the right to register the term “screw you” as a wide-ranging European trademark because it is offensive. It can be used, but only for goods sold in sex shops, the European trademark authority has ruled...

"Shoot the rapper"?

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2007-07-22 11:11:04. Republished by Blog Post PromoterFittycent seems to have a pretty good case here: Rapper 50 Cent on Friday sued Internet advertising company Traffix Inc. for using his image without permission in the graphic “Shoot the Rapper” ad, which he says promotes violence and threatens his safety...

Statutory damages in copyright, and the Tenenbaum case

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2009-03-18 19:50:47. Republished by Blog Post PromoterStatutory Damages and the Tenenbaum Litigation:  Doug Lichtman out at UCLA sends this along: Joel Tenenbaum looks a lot like every other defendant who has been accused by the music industry of illegally sharing copyrighted work online, but with one key difference: his defense attorney is Harvard [...

Wal-Mart pushed back on dubious trademark threats

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2006-03-08 13:33:28. Republished by Blog Post PromoterMarketWatch reports this story about an opinonated gent who’s suing Wal-Mart for a declaratory judgment: Smith said he was making a point by comparing the giant retail company to the Nazis by creating T-shirt designs that played off the Bentonville, Ark...

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Cardiac counterfeiting

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2008-04-29 02:54:51. Republished by Blog Post PromoterIt’s not a defense to trademark infringement or counterfeiting that your heart is full of good intentions. Cardiac counterfeiting ©, .

Taking the IP Train

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2005-06-09 14:53:00. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe New York Times reported (yes, reg. req.) last week that New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority is scrambling to enforce trademark rights in its wide array of iconography, including the famous alphanumeric train symbols known to all New Yorkers...

Revisiting the Black List

Posted on September 06, 2010
Originally posted 2006-03-07 13:14:43. Republished by Blog Post PromoterDavid Bernstein writes: [Northwestern Law Prof Martin] Redish concludes, and this Reviewer agrees, it was entirely appropriate — under the First Amendment, and also morally — for businesses and individuals to boycott members of the Stalinist CPUSA...

Edifice complex

Posted on September 03, 2010
It’s the Singularity a-borning!  On the two-year anniversary of my joining Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP, a law firm predominantly focused on construction law, I’ve written a blog post, as a guest of high-octane social-media-juicing lawyer Christopher Hill at his Construction Law Musings blog...

Rosetta Stone v. Google: Lost in translation

Posted on September 01, 2010
When courts consider search engine company liability for trademark infringement, whether direct or indirect, they typically focus on the sale of ?trademarked? keywords, or search terms, to third parties for use in advertising and directing internet traffic to websites that compete with the trademark owner, as recently demonstrated in Rescuecom v...

Blawg Review: Colin Samuels’s class act

Posted on September 01, 2010
Originally posted 2008-12-08 09:42:39. Republished by Blog Post PromoterAt Infamy or Praise, tales of an ancient mariner: For my first three Blawg Reviews, I’ve let Dante lead me through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Inconsiderately enough, however, Il Maestro never completed a fourth cantica for his Divine Comedy, leaving me stuck for a theme this time [...

Princeton Review’s Top 50 Law Schools

Posted on September 01, 2010
Originally posted 2007-10-22 10:18:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Northwestern rules! Ahem. These lists are really all just silly anyway. (H/T to Insty. And grudging acceptance, in substance, from Leiter!) Princeton Review’s Top 50 Law Schools ©, .

eBay wins Tiffany case

Posted on September 01, 2010
Originally posted 2008-07-14 16:10:07. Republished by Blog Post PromoterReuters reports that Tiffany’s gamble has not paid off: EBay Inc scored a major legal victory on Monday, when a federal judge ruled that Tiffany & Co failed to prove the online auctioneer was responsible for the sale of fake Tiffany jewelry on its website...

Not safe for work

Posted on August 30, 2010
Blawg Review #279 is up at Mirriam Seddiq’s Not Guilty blog. It’s not safe for work.  Unless you work in a law office. Home… that’s something else. Not safe for work ©, .

Grey is OK

Posted on August 30, 2010
Originally posted 2006-04-05 12:48:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter The Business Review (Albany) reports (reg. required) on what could be a very important decision relating to the importation of grey goods: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has directed the U...

Great moments in trademark trolling

Posted on August 30, 2010
Originally posted 2008-02-29 09:47:28. Republished by Blog Post PromoterCrunchGear: With Nuvio suing Garmin?s Nuviphone on fairly spurious grounds, let?s take a look at famous trademark wars of times past. A little more on the bit-sized scale than a survey of warfare, but decent enough filler...

Impolitico, redux

Posted on August 25, 2010
I first read about the brouhaha over the Politico trademark claim against the College Politico blog on Instapundit: ED MORRISSEY: ?Who owns the word ?Politico??? The blogosphere has been very good to Politico, and I think they should bear in mind the ill-will they?re incurring as a result of their heavy-handed legal tactics...

“Infinity Dollars” — IP damages and the jury, Part 1

Posted on August 25, 2010
Originally posted 2009-06-19 12:07:08. Republished by Blog Post PromoterA lot of people, including judges, lawyers and civilians, don’t seem to really understand what statutory damages are all about.  They are not supposed to be a windfall (discussed more here)...

ABA Journal on Bloggers

Posted on August 25, 2010
Originally posted 2005-07-15 14:09:49. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe ABA Journal has an article on bloggers which mentions the Media Bloggers Association and quotes my own self. This is progress, I guess: Ten years ago I was writing for the ABA Journal, and now the ABA Journal‘s writing about me! That doesn’t mean I’ll rejoin [...

Pick your poison

Posted on August 17, 2010
Is it infringement or a breach of contract?  Is it a license or an assignment?  Well, whatever it is, it’s a little complicated, and Pamela Chestek does a good job of following all that geometry on her Property, Intangible blog. Not just a good job:  That blog post represents hard work — not just intellectually [...

Knockoffs — nu?

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2006-06-26 22:34:43. Republished by Blog Post PromoterYou’ve got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues Websites with fake junk: too-good-to-be-trues! So many fakes out there — if you want honest schmooze, Click Counterfeit Chic for this week’s “Knockoff News“! Knockoffs — nu? ©, .

EMI Dumps Copy Protection

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2007-04-02 14:08:07. Republished by Blog Post PromoterDean’s World – EMI Dumps Copy Protection: Hmm, this is interesting. EMI will be distributing DRM-free music through Apple’s iTunes store. I really hope it works out well for them...

Trademarks mean something different up there, I guess

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2007-01-29 17:00:27. Republished by Blog Post PromoterCan a building be a trademark? Can a photo of a building be a trademark? Can a drawing based on a photo of a building be a trademark? I’d be inclined to answer no, no, maybe...

“Fraud on the PTO”

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2008-03-18 18:44:14. Republished by Blog Post PromoterHere’s a special guest post on the TTABlog that lays out the state of the law regarding the increasingly confusing, and sometimes distressing, issue for trademark lawyers of what constitutes “fraud” in the prosecution and maintenance of federal trademark applications and registrations...

Getting a grip

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2006-07-05 18:45:34. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI complain a lot in this space about the ruthless expansion of IP “rent seeking,” i.e., the attempt to snag “rights” wherever possible in “space” previously considered free and open for the imagination and for cultural interaction, you know? But looking back on this article from 1998, [...

Insta-Greetings

Posted on August 17, 2010
Originally posted 2005-01-05 20:48:00. Republished by Blog Post PromoterIf you’ve got a modem, you might get a link: It doesn’t get any better for a blogger on his third day in business. Now I feel a little guilty, though. It will pass. Thanks...

Not Baidu enough

Posted on August 15, 2010
Baidu is another case in which the court declined to extend anything like a strict-liability standard for contributory infringement, in this case against a domain registrar.  In Baidu, the court considered allegations that the domain name registrar had allegedly been ?tricked? by the alleged direct infringer into divulging security information about its customer, the Chinese [...

Goodbye, dolly

Posted on August 15, 2010
Republished by Blog Post PromoterPamela Chestek reports on the dizzying fallout of the Bratz litigation. Goodbye, dolly ©, .

“Infringement Eater” off to Azkaban

Posted on August 15, 2010
Republished by Blog Post PromoterBut, of course! Reuters: Police have arrested a high school student suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the Internet weeks ahead of the official French release date, a newspaper reported on Wednesday...

True twit

Posted on August 15, 2010
Republished by Blog Post PromoterHere are last week’s greatest twits from @roncoleman: RT @ptolawyer: Subway sues Vegas restaurant for TM infringement -TacticalIP.com IP Bully of the Month? http://bit.ly/3c2lNO RT @nowsourcing: RT @toprank The Truth About SEO http://retwt...

Bloggers and Liability

Posted on August 15, 2010
Republished by Blog Post PromoterLauren Gelman writes to ask us to spread the word about a new online class on Bloggers and Liability: We’re beta testing a Law and Technology Academy in a Virtual World.  Tomorrow and Thursday at 5:30 PM PST, I’m going to teach a class in There...

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