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The Gallery Strikes Back

By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

The New York Times reports that the San Francisco gallery that was on the receiving end of a cease-and-desist letter from Jeff Koons for producing and selling ?Balloon Dog? bookends has brought a declaratory judgment lawsuit: "'As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain,' the gallery says in its federal complaint. 'Any similarities between the Balloon Dog Bookend compared with the Balloon Dog Structure are driven by the wholly unprotectable idea of depicting the shape of a balloon dog in a solid form.'"

Ed Winkleman has news of another, similar lawsuit.

Full post as published by The Art Law Blog on January 21, 2011 (boomark / email).