Intellectual Property Law

eBay, Vero and the Scientologists

Posted on December 10, 2008
Last February Scott Pilutik, an aggressively anti-religion blogger and lawyer, posted this excellent piece about the abuse by the Scientology cult of eBay’s VeRO program, which eBay waves around to show what it’s doing to combat counterfeiting on the Internet (though of course the courts have mainly relieved it of having to do much of [...

Likelihood of enthusiasm

Posted on December 09, 2008
Here’s a notice regarding our lust for life from C.C. Holland at Law.com: The litmus test for whether you should start a blog boils down to passion, says Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of professional blog service LexBlog and a blogger himself. “I think every attorney should consider blogging, [but] if you don’t have a passion for the [...

eBay appeal: The gang’$ all here

Posted on December 09, 2008
Eric Krangel reports that Amazon and Google join in on the Tiffany v. eBay appeal: It’s not hard to see where the interest is coming from: A ruling against eBay could have ramifications for Amazon Marketplace or Google Checkout as well. Yes, ramifications indeed...

Blawg Review: Colin Samuels’s class act

Posted on December 08, 2008
At 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 around...

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Acquiring distinction

Posted on December 05, 2008
Tim, of the JoshueTree blog, asks a great question in the comments to this post: Can one of you help me?I?m a confused Trademark student. If they already have protection under 2(f) ["acquired distinctiveness'] - and I visited the website, they have a section about their trademark policies that’s quite impressive?anyway, I?m confused as to why a [...

Color me infringing

Posted on December 04, 2008
Trademark law continues to slip from its moorings in subtle ways.  From Inside Higher Ed (hat tip to its editor, Doug Lederman, for sending it along): On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ? ruling in a case involving an apparel manufacturer that made T-shirts that incorporated the colors but not the [...

EFF backs eBay in Tiffany spat

Posted on December 04, 2008
See, we don’t agree with Public Citizen all the time!  Read on, via the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): [EFF] along with Public Citizen and Public Knowledge urged a U.S. court of appeals Wednesday to reject jewelry-maker Tiffany’s attempt to rewrite trademark law and create new barriers for online commerce and communication...

Tackiness not grounds for refusal to register

Posted on December 01, 2008
Otherwise, why would John Welch be reporting this appeal?: December 4, 2008 - 10 AM: In re Chippendales USA, LLC, Serial No. 78666598 [Refusal to register the apparel configuration shown below for "adult entertainment services, namely exotic dancing for women in the nature of live performances" on the ground that the design is not inherently distinctive]...

Lori Drew and you

Posted on November 30, 2008
We’ve written a sort of roundup touching on some of the issues implicated by the Lori Drew “MySpace suicide” prosecution and verdict over at the Media Bloggers Association Legal Blog.

Trademarks with all the trimmings

Posted on November 27, 2008
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Joins in the Celebration of Thanksgiving: The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office joins in the celebration of Thanksgiving by recognizing some patents and trademarks associated with this festive holiday...

Defamation nation

Posted on November 26, 2008
We know a little about defamation law, but Adrianos Facchetti appears to be the go-to man in the blogosphere, so from now on, ask him!  He writes the California Defamation Law Blog, which does not appear to be limited, topically, to California law, and which includes pages called Defamation Basics and Blog Protection 101...

Double feature

Posted on November 25, 2008
Fleeting expletives, Batman!

Louisiana’s lawyers’ guild

Posted on November 25, 2008
Last year we screamed and shouted along with a bunch of other people and prevented New York from passing “ethics” rules that would have essentially shut down New York lawyers’ blogs by regulating them out of existence.  Unfortunately all the noise didn’t make it down to Louisiana, which did go ahead and pass a similar [...

Beyond fair use

Posted on November 24, 2008
We’re a little obsessed here with the rights of “unauthorized” resellers to use the trademarks that describe the stuff they’re reselling.  So this UK domain name decision strikes us as extra-interesting (a link added): Pressure gauge maker ITT failed in its claim for the domain name ITTbarton...

Nolo contendere

Posted on November 23, 2008
There can’t be any dispute:  This is a blog a lot of people, and especially non-specialists, should read — Nolo’s Patent, Copyright & Trademark blog by Rich Stim.  He answers basic questions with great insight and a full appreciation of the issues and resources...

Consider yourself enlightened

Posted on November 23, 2008
Michael Atkins, the Pacific Northwest’s trademark blogging doyen and, known to very few, one of America’s legendary masters of the theremin, has published a list of Considerations in Drafting Trademark License Agreements in connection with his upcoming CLE presentation, which you can read about here.

J.D. Supra, Facebook …. and the Word

Posted on November 21, 2008
Bob Ambrogi: The document-sharing site JD Supra is launching an application for Facebook today that lets its members stream their documents and professional profile information into their Facebook profiles. This means that if you contribute documents to JD Supra, you can get additional exposure by having them show up in Facebook...

Jones Day keeps chillin’

Posted on November 19, 2008
Public Citizen’s Paul Alan Levy reports: A few weeks ago, I commented on the efforts of mega law firm Jones Day to abuse trademark law to suppress articles it didn?t like on a real estate transactions web site, BlockShopper.com.  Jones Day claims that linking to its web site without permission infringes and dilutes its trademark...

Mourning Sonny

Posted on November 17, 2008
No, not that Sonny.  No, rather this:  If America’s most famous variety-show-star-turned-congressman hadn’t slammed into that tree on that fatal day of downhill skiing, we’d probably never have the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998...

The thing speaks for itself

Posted on November 17, 2008
Blawg Recenseo est procul Res Ipsa Blog! NB (ut opes notabilis “note well“): Nos should totus have habeo Latin nomen pro nostrum blogs. Ut would restituo veneratio quod integrity ut professio , quod enhance publicus contemplor nobis. (Blawg Review is at the Res Ipsa Blog! NB (that means nota bene):  We should all have to have Latin [...

Weblog awards

Posted on November 17, 2008
We never win, so it’s not about that.  The reason must be because we write about sub-niche topics here which for some reason not everyone finds fascinating.  But you can nominate and vote for your favorite law blogs, and other blogs, in this year’s Weblog Awards.

Fool’s gold

Posted on November 16, 2008
The Internet changes everything right? Not this: A fool and his money — especially the kind paid to consultants — are still soon parted: Pre-Internet, lawyers would do their best to flesh out the backgrounds of people who might sit in the jury box...

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Posted on November 16, 2008
Knoxnews.com reports: Unsuccessful state House candidate Roger Byrge is suing Republican Rep. Stacey Campfield for libel. Byrge, a Democrat who lost his East Tennessee race by fewer than 400 votes, filed the $750,000 lawsuit against Campfield in Jacksboro this week...

Social networking your way to summary judgment

Posted on November 15, 2008
That’s summary judgment, or worse, against you or your client.  Last February we reported on a decision in which a federal magistrate judge ruled, unsurprisingly, that there is no “social networking privilege.” Now Walter Olson reports and links on further developments and thoughts as follows: Nowhere to hide: When your litigation opponent subpoenas your Facebook, Amazon, [...

Blogosphere news

Posted on November 15, 2008
It’s not all about us, you know.  For example: Stephen Nipper has a page with links to free text of the opinions in all of the past US Supreme Court patent law cases.  How awesome is that?  Ok, it would be a little more impressive if he had future decisions...

Lego loses

Posted on November 13, 2008
We reported on Lego’s overreaching years ago here and here.  They tried to use trademark rights as a way to protect the design of their toy and avoid competition.  But that is not what trademarks are, much less what they are for.  And now, barring a successful appeal, a European court has ruled that the [...

“We cannot allow our brand to be abused”

Posted on November 13, 2008
What “brand” is that? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brand. The greed of the King “branders” was one of the earliest, and is still one of the most popular, posts on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, and it’s rearing its really unbecoming head once again in light of “the sudden wave of T-shirts, posters and [...

Just trying to be Objectivist!

Posted on November 13, 2008
We’re not libertarians at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, but when it comes to regulation of economic resources we do kind of swing that way.  And we’re kind of stumped about what to think about the issue.  Thankfully, now there’s Eric S. Raymond’s “Net neutrality: what?s a libertarian to do“?  Excerpt: One of my commenters asked, rather [...

How secret can secret be?

Posted on November 12, 2008
For an actual federal litigation case currently about to go to trial?  Very secret.

Mooning off into the sunset

Posted on November 11, 2008
The lawsuit by the Naked Cowboy against candymaker Mars has been settled. Terms are undisclosed, the filing of a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice a sorry fig leaf over this tawdry affair.

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