Intellectual Property Law

FCC Shuns ISP's to Embrace Net Neutrality

Posted on October 23, 2009
A little over two plus years after the FTC took a pass on jumping into the net neutrality battle, the FCC has decided to carry the net neutrality banner.  The Wall Street Journal reported that the FCC is proposing new rules embracing equal treatment for all types of internet content...

Peeking Behind the Google Shield

Posted on August 21, 2009
Criticism of a Vogue magazine cover model isn't exactly ground breaking legal news.  A judge ruling requiring Google to turn over the name of the defaming blogger may be.  ABC News reports that the New York State Supreme Court did not buy a blogger's argument that the Internet is a place for ranting, notwithstanding the facts...

Posner Proposal to Save Newspapers: Prohibit Linking/Paraphrasing

Posted on July 23, 2009
Judge Richard Posner of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (and renown legal scholar and blogger) has recently proposed a solution to the decline of newspapers in the U.S. - change the law (specifically copyright law) to prohibit linking, copying small parts of news articles, and paraphrasing online...

Google, Copyrights and Trademarks - An Update

Posted on July 16, 2009
Over the years, Google has received countless complaints regarding unauthorized use of images. Earlier this month, Google implemented a feature on its Image Search tool that allows users to filter images by usage rights. Users can use this tool to find images that are available for Internet use and in some cases adaption...

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Another EU - US Privacy Gap - IP Addresses Not PII

Posted on July 07, 2009
A Seattle Judge recently ruled in a class action suit against Microsoft that IP Addresses do not constitute Personal Identifiable Information (PII) for purposes of interpreting restrictions in a user agreement.  The ruling, recently reported by Online Media Daily,  runs counter to decisions and interpretations in both the EU and New Jersey...

Act Fast to Protect Your Trademarks on Facebook

Posted on June 11, 2009
Facebook, the social networking website, will begin allowing vanity URL's this weekend, inviting yet another opportunity for opportunistic domainers to nab your trademarks.Specifically, Facebook has announced that beginning on June 13, 2009, at 12:01 a...

Sotomayor's Record on IP and Technology Issues

Posted on June 05, 2009
President Obama recently announced that he intends to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, filling the seat vacated by Justice David Souter. If appointed, she could have a very significant impact on IP and technology issues...

New PWC Patent Litigation Survey Shows Trial Success Rate Highest Ever

Posted on April 29, 2009
A link to the PWC report is here.  Summary of relevant findings: median damage award has remained steady over the years when adjusted for inflation. Significant difference in success rates and size of awards between bench trials and jury cases is driving more jury trials...

Second Circuit Breathes New Life Into Trademarks Holders' Claims Against Google's Adwords

Posted on April 14, 2009
In 2006, the Second Circuit ruled in a case called 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU, that an adware program that detected visits to corporate web sites via their URLs, and triggered competitor's ads in a separate popup window, did not make any "use in commerce" of the trademarks embodied in those URL's, and that therefore the conduct was not actionable under the Lanham Act...

To Link or Not To Link?

Posted on April 02, 2009
Earlier this year, Tim referred to the Jones Day/Blockshopper trademark dispute.  I have been invited to expound on this topic.   Last year, a fledgling real estate news site called BlockShopper started publishing information about the home purchases of lawyers from the New York law firm Jones Day...

E-Discovery Irony

Posted on February 18, 2009
You know that Alanis Morissette song, "Ironic," well it seems to me that it has tarnished an entire generation's understanding of irony: And isn't it ironic... don't you think It's like rain on your wedding dayIt's a free ride when you've already paidIt's the good advice that you just didn't takeWho would've thought...

Convergence: Britannica Banned in Schools

Posted on January 28, 2009
We've blogged here before about Wikipedia, and how it is sometimes relied on by courts, yet shunned in schools.  In an ironic coincidence, Wikipedia has announced plans to possibly limit the ability of unknown editors to make changes to or add entries, just as Britannica has announced that it is introducing functionality to allow users to enhance it's online content...

Kentucky Domain Seizure Craps Out

Posted on January 21, 2009
Earlier this fall, we blogged about a potential seizure of 141 domain names by the State of Kentucky. A three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals recently issued an order prohibiting the enforcement of the seizure order.  The original seizure order was based on the premise that domain names, when used in the Internet gambling context, are gambling devices subject to forfeiture...

A Late Addition to the Best of the Best . . .

Posted on January 13, 2009
Tamar Weinberg at techipedia has published her list of the Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008, and it really is treasure trove of great information.  Lots of current advice on best practices, tips and trends relating to everything from search engine optimization to twitter to reputation management...

The Best of the Best of the Best, Sir!

Posted on January 02, 2009
This time of year lots of folks come out with their “Top Ten” lists, “Year in Review”, “Look Ahead” or “Look Back” lists. We’ve even done it here at the TechKnowledgyBlog. But not this year. Instead, here is a list of the better Year in Review type lists we’ve seen over the last few weeks...

Aggresive Georgia Law Requires Sex Offenders to Turn Over Passwords

Posted on December 31, 2008
In a bold move destined to draw a challenge from privacy advocates, the state of Georgia has passed a law that becomes effective tomorrow (Jan. 1, 2009), that requires sex offenders to hand over their Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses...

Open Source: One to Watch FSF v. Cisco

Posted on December 12, 2008
The Free Software Foundation has sued Cisco alleging that Cisco breached the GNU GPL by distributing routers with GPL Open Source software without providing end users of its products with access to the source codefor open source software embedded within the products, as required by the GPL...

Open Source Verification of Proprietary Election Software

Posted on December 10, 2008
Humboldt County California is engaged in an intriguing experiment to test the accuracy and validity of proprietary electronic voting systems by essentially parallel processing the ballots with an open source software system and comparing the results. According to the preliminary report, at least one serious error has already been demonstrated in the Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) software...

The ?Streisand Effect? and Child Porn

Posted on December 10, 2008
The “Streisand Effect” is alive and well as evidenced by the recent actions of the Internet Watch Foundation in retracting its objection to a Wikipedia page that contained an image of a naked girl. Story here. The image at issue is on an album cover of the heavy metal band the Scorpions dating back to 1976...

The Launch of .Tel

Posted on December 04, 2008
So is this just a featureless social network that costs $10 a year, or the most significant innovation since ".com"? Probably somewhere very far from those extremes, but you be the judge. Registration for the .tel domains is now opened for trademark holders, andthis sunrise periodwill remain open until February 3rd...

Kentucky Hits Domain Name Jackpot

Posted on October 20, 2008
Warren Agin of the Tech Bankruptcy Blog recently reported on the intriguing case of Commonwealth v. 141 Domain Names.    In this case,

IP Rights Enforcement Bill Awaits President's Signature

Posted on October 03, 2008
David Carney provides an excellent summary and background of the Pro-IP Act at his Tech Law Journal site, which I reproduce below with his permission. (The TLJ site is subscription only for current content - all becomes public after 30 days) *         *         *  The Senate amended and passed by unanimous consent S 3325 [LOC | WW], the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008" on September 26, 2008...

Use of Competitor's Marks in MetaTags Per Se Infringement . . . Almost

Posted on September 16, 2008
In a recent case, Venture Tape Corp. v. McGills Glass Warehouse, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that hiding the competitor's trademarks on a website for the purpose of increasing search engine ranking constitutes trademark infringement...

Federal Circuit Validates Open Source Licensing Model

Posted on September 06, 2008
The Open Source Community has based it's business model on the assumption that it could enforce compliance with various open source license agreements by bringing causes of action for copyright infringement against those who do not comply. The theory has been tested in the case of Jacobson v...

CA Goes Crazy on DMCA Takedown - Adds Fair Use Component

Posted on August 29, 2008
In Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., a federal district court in California ruled that copyright holder contemplating a takedown notice under the DMCA must consider fair use to meet its obligation to have a good faith belief that infringement has occurred...

The Benefits of Early Registration of Copyrights Highlighted

Posted on June 18, 2008
In a case that confirms the advisability of registering your copyright in software and websites, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied statutory damages in the context of a continuing infringement.  The copyright act does not allow statutory damages or attorney’s fees if the infringement “commenced” prior to the registration of the copyright (subject to a 3 month relation back exception for newly published works)...

Pennsylvania Case Could Give Second Life to Click-Wrap Licensees

Posted on April 15, 2008
The recent Eastern District of Pennsylvania case of Bragg vs. Linden Research, Inc. recently garnered significant attention for its potential impact on the ownership of virtual property in the popular website Second Life.  However, the courts analysis of principals of  unconsciounability  to an arbitration clause in a click-wrap agreement could impact click-wrap agreements in all areas of electronic commerce...

PwC Study of Patent Litigation Cases Released

Posted on March 24, 2008
The 2008 PricewaterhouseCoopers Patent Litigation Study has been released.  Peter Zura's excellent 271 Patent Blog summarizes some highlights as follows: Interestingly, with the alleged "explosion" in patent litigation, there were no identifiable increases in time-to-trial...

Software Licensing Trends

Posted on February 22, 2008
In the morass of licensing transactions from 2007 we have noticed some trends that will be relevant to your software license negotiations in 2008.Increased use of the vendor hosted software model. A few years ago, it seemed like the vast majority of software licensing transactions that passed across our desks were traditional software on a disk or downloaded software hosted on the servers of the customer...

Top Ten TTAB Decisions of 2007

Posted on January 18, 2008
John Welch of the TTAB Blog gives us the Top Ten for 2007 in two installments.  The First is here, and the Second is here.

Bodies in Your Freezer?

Posted on January 17, 2008
Let’s assume that you have an un-pickable lock on an impenetrable freezer in your basement, and assume further that freezer is full of body parts from your victims (these are assumptions – right?). The Feds think they know what's in there, but they can’t get in unless you unlock it...

Net Harassment - Creative Remedies

Posted on January 11, 2008
Several recent cases and events have focused significant attention on the use of the Internet for defamatory and harassing activities.  In the New York divorce case of Garrido v. Krasnansky a court has ordered that a husband stop posting inflammatory remarks about his wife on his blog...

Year in Review

Posted on December 28, 2007
The lists are starting to roll in.  Check out Pogo's Chronicles of Dissent: Top Ten Privacy Breaches of 2007, and Threat Level's look at the year 2007  from a privacy/security perspective.  The Metropolitan Counsel provides us with the Advertising, Marketing And Promotions Law Year In Review,   and the USPTO Announces it's year end results, touting "historic improvement in the quality of patent and trademark reviews and subsequently the quality of issued patents and registered trademarks...

Eighth Circuit Sox It to Fantasy Baseball Foes

Posted on October 30, 2007
On October 16, 2007, the Eighth Circuit ruled that the First Amendment protected the use of player names and statistics on fantasy baseball sites established by C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc.    C.B.C.  brought a declaratory judgement action against Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L...

Media Companies Agree on On-Line Copyright Guidelines

Posted on October 25, 2007
Updated Oct. 26, 2007  to add a link to the document - see:  Principles for User Generated Content ServicesSeveral of the largest media companies have agreed to use technology to eliminate copyright-infringing content uploaded by Web users and to block any pirated material before it is publicly accessible...

Ninth Circuit Wakes Up On Its Own Planet

Posted on October 10, 2007
That is how Raymond T. Nimmer explains a trio of decisions by that court that have been handed down in the last several months.  Collectively, the decisions strike down arbitration clauses, class action waivers, and choice of law/forum selection clauses in various agreements...

Blind Web Surfers on Target for Another Victory

Posted on October 04, 2007
On Wednesday, a federal judge in California granted class-action status to a lawsuit against Target Corp. filed by the Baltimore-based National Federation for the Blind under the American's with Disabilities Act and two state law claims.  "This is a tremendous step forward for blind people throughout the country who for too long have been denied equal access to the Internet economy," said Marc Maurer, president of the NFB...

Educational Websites Must Comply with the ADA

Posted on October 03, 2007
The TechLawJournal has two articles today that do an excellent job of summarizing the state of the law as it applies to web sites and the ADA, and the recent settlement agreement between the Department of Justice and Sylvan Learning Centers.  The settlement agreement imposes on Sylvan obligations of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act...

The Last Lecture of Technology Guru Randy Pausch

Posted on October 01, 2007
This is a tremendous lecture from Randy Pausch, given as part of the "Last Lecture" series, where professors are asked to speak to their audience as if they were giving their last lecture, on the topics that are most important to them...

Video Professor Finds Way to Highlight On-line Criticism

Posted on September 24, 2007
You know the Video Professor - he's the guy on those infomercials that urges you to buy his computer education programs by trying them for free.  The company even encourages consumers to search for reviews online before buying.  Problem is, lots of consumers are complaining online that they were mislead as to the "free" part, or are otherwise unhappy with the product...

Check Out AltLaw Beta

Posted on August 25, 2007
AltLaw is a web searchable database of federal court opinions.  Pretty handy.  Here's what it says about itself: AltLaw is a joint project of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School...