Intellectual Property Law

The recent making available casesThe Patry Copyright Blog

Posted on April 04, 2008
There have been three opinions in six weeks on the suits brought by RIAA in which the issue of the alleged making available right as well as infringement of the distribution right have been raised. They are not the first opinions, nor will they be the last, but they are interesting in their own right, and are noteworthy because the judges involved took the time to address the issues seriously and thoughtfully...

US Judiciary opts to spend millions on accessing its own records, which are now available on the Web for freeBoing Boing

Posted on April 04, 2008
Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, Some days, the U.S. government truly astounds. At Public.Resource.Org, we released 50 years of decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Knowing that the U.S. Courts have to pay big bucks to West Law and Lexis/Nexis to access their own archives, we though they might be interested in having their very own copy...

University prof says students can't sell notes from his classes because it violates his copyrightBoing Boing

Posted on April 04, 2008
Michael Moulton, a prof at the University of Florida, is suing a company tha republishes his students' notes from class, because he says that taking notes on his classes and selling them violates his copyright. Those notes are illegal, Faulkner and Moulton contend, since they are derivative works of the professor's copyrighted lectures...

Library of Congress Experience Sneak PreviewLibrary of Congress Blog

Posted on April 04, 2008
This past Monday, Cheryl Regan of the Library?s Interpretive Programs Office (i.e., she?s in charge of exhibitions) was gracious enough to allow me to tip-toe around the fabrication materials and power tools over in the Thomas Jefferson Building and lead me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the installation of our new Library of Congress Experience...

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State Sues Unclaimed Money Site After Finding It Told Wile E. Coyote He Had Unclaimed MoneyTechdirt

Posted on April 03, 2008
Pennsylvania is suing a website that promised to help people get access to unclaimed money they were owed after investigators determined that the site was convincing people to pay $24.95 for a membership by telling them they had unclaimed money, no matter who they were...

Free, worldwide patent search site ? NEWThe Invent Blog®

Posted on April 03, 2008
PriorSmart.com [Originally posted on The Invent Blog. Copyright © Nipper, LLC 2004-2007. All Rights Reserved.]

RIAA: N.Y. judge's 'making available' ruling was no setbackThe Iconoclast

Posted on April 03, 2008
The Recording Industry Association of America says a New York judge's ruling earlier this week really wasn't much of a setback for them. In fact, they say they don't mind it much at all. This is my article from Tuesday to which the RIAA is responding...

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military OperationsThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs

Posted on April 02, 2008
What Could It Mean for Warrantless Domestic Surveillance? Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, "Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States" (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday...

School District Didn't Violate First Amendment for Reassigning Teacher Who Blogged--Richerson v. BeckonTechnology & Marketing Law Blog

Posted on April 02, 2008
By Eric Goldman Richerson v. Beckon, 2008 WL 833076 (W.D. Wash. March 27, 2008) A school district appointed Richerson to...

Gibson Sues Makers Of Guitar Hero And Rock Band For Patent Infringment [Gibson]Consumerist

Posted on April 02, 2008
Gibson is suing Activision, Harmonix, Electronic Arts, and MTV over alleged patent infringement over the companies' involvement in Rock Band and the Guitar Hero series. The lawsuit is not over Guitar Hero's use of the iconic Les Paul, SG, and Explorer guitars as controllers, but for violation of a decade-old patent for...

Judge Posner and the Continuing Violation DoctrineThe Patry Copyright Blog

Posted on April 02, 2008
Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner issued an opinion yesterday that spells out his interpretation of the continuing violation doctrine in statute of limitations law. The case, Limestone Development Corp. v. Village of Lemont, Illinois, may be found here on the court's website...

In an About Face, New Jersey Provides Lawyer Records to WebsiteABA Journal Daily News

Posted on April 02, 2008
The state of New Jersey has complied with a request for records of thousands of lawyers in the state by lawyer-ranking website Avvo. Avvo had petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court for access to names, year of admission and current bar status of?

Arrests in fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad rip-offBoing Boing

Posted on April 02, 2008
Oregon cops caught the alleged crooks who posted a fake "moving, everything must go, just come and take it" ad on Craigslist, which ended up costing their victim almost everything he owned. The pair had allegedly stolen a saddle from the man and wanted to cover up the crime, but they used a traceable IP address to commit the fraud...

Annie Get Your GunCounterfeit Chic

Posted on April 02, 2008
If anything could provoke yet another round of hand-wringing anxiety in the cultivated bundle of neuroses that is Woody Allen, it's seeing his own face appear on a giant billboard for American Apparel -- without authorization.  Hence the USD $10 million lawsuit filed on Monday in federal district court in Manhattan, claiming that American Apparel violated Allen's rights of publicity by appropriating an image from his film Annie Hall...

eBay Bans Auctions of Digital PropertyG4 TV - TheFeed

Posted on April 02, 2008
eBay has dropped the banhammer on auctions that contain digital property. The trouble was that allowing digital goods meant sellers could put up as many auctions as they wanted, because they had an unlimited number of copies that could be delivered. These multiple listings were choking the pipes and making it hard for people to find what they were actually looking for when browsing...

'Borat' Defamation Suit Is DismissedWSJ.com: Law

Posted on April 02, 2008
A judge has tossed a defamation lawsuit brought by a businessman shown in the movie "Borat" as he is chased by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Sony BMG Sued For Using Pirated SoftwareSilicon Alley Insider

Posted on April 01, 2008
You read that headline right -- Sony BMG, ardent foe of music piracy, is in trouble for using pirated software. The company is being sued by PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, after an IT worker at Sony BMG called and supplied the company with a pirated license number for one of its products...

Why TechCrunch Is Suing Facebook For $25 MillionThe Trademark Blog

Posted on April 01, 2008
TechCrunch: "Why We're Suing Facebook For $25 Million In Statutory Damages": So we?ve been increasingly concerned about developments at Facebook over the last few months that allow advertisers to post ads using my picture and name to endorse their products without my explicit permission...

NYC Lawyers Subpoena CodeSlashdot: Your Rights Online

Posted on April 01, 2008
RonMcMahon writes "Lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed the text message records of thousands of people involved in demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Tad Hirsch, creator of the TXTmob code that enabled convention demonstrators to transmit messages to thousands of telephones, has been instructed to release the content of messages exchanged on the service and to identify people who sent and received messages...

Offering to Distribute = Distribution, says in Court Elektra v. BarkerThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs

Posted on April 01, 2008
Yesterday, a federal court ruled in Elektra v. Barker that "an offer to distribute ... for the purpose of further distribution" may be enough to violate a copyright owner's distribution right. This ruling opens the door open for civil attempt liability when it comes to distribution -- in other words, that having a song in a shared folder without authorization might be infringing, even if no one ever downloads it from you...

No April Fools joke: Continuation and claim limit rules held invalid; permanently enjoinedFilewrapper®

Posted on April 01, 2008
In a ruling today regarding the parties' motions for summary judgment in the consolidated cases challenging the USPTO's new claim and continutation rules, Judge Cacheris ruled the rules were invalid, and permanently enjoined their enforcement...

Julie Hilden on Fox v. FCCMedia Law Prof Blog

Posted on April 01, 2008
FindLaw's Julie Hilden weighs in on the Supreme Court's possible decision in the "fleeting expletives" case, Fox v. FCC here.

*** USPTO Continuation Ruled Dead (For Now) ***Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog

Posted on April 01, 2008
Judge Cacheris from the ED Va. granted GSK?s and Tafas?s Motions for Summary Judgment finding that the PTO?s "hard limit" on the number of continuation applications and claims per patent were excessive extensions of PTO authority:Because the USPTO?s rulemaking authority under 35 U...

Prepare to Repel B'ardersTechnorati Search for: "blawg review"

Posted on March 31, 2008
On my legal weblog, Declarations and Exclusions, I am once again pleased to host an edition of Blawg Review, the carnival of law-related bloggers and blogging. Blawg Review #153 is a "themed" version, driven on this occasion by matters generally nautical and specifically piratical...

"5 Famous Inventors (Who Stole Their Big Idea)"SIVACRACY.NET

Posted on March 31, 2008
Well, at least according to this website.

Richards on Intellectual PrivacyLegal Theory Blog

Posted on March 31, 2008
Neil M. Richards (Washington University School of Law) has posted Intellectual Privacy (Texas Law Review, Vol. 87, No. 2, December 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:This paper is about intellectual privacy - the protection of records of our intellectual activities - and how legal protection of these records is essential to the First Amendment values of free thought and expression...

Neil Netanel?s Copyright?s ParadoxThe Patry Copyright Blog

Posted on March 31, 2008
On December 13th, 2007, I did a post on UCLA law professor Neil Netanel?s article discussing the causes for copyright?s expansion something like a major league baseball player (pick your favorite) juiced on steroids. I noted that the article was originally intended to be part of a forthcoming book ?Copyright?s Paradox...

TTABlog Quarterly Index: January 2008 - March 2008The TTABlog®

Posted on March 31, 2008
For those who haven't noticed, e-mail subscriptions to the TTABlog are available. Just enter your e-mail address in the box on the right to receive a daily update via Feeblitz.Section 2(a) - Deceptiveness:TTAB Affirms 2(a) Deceptiveness Refusal of "MINK BIKINI" for Minkless Clothing Finding "MINK" Deceptive and Deceptively Misdescriptive for Clothing, TTAB Affirms 2(a) and 2(e)(1) RefusalsSection 2(a) - False Connection: TTAB Reverses 2(a) Refusal of "L'OREAL PARIS" for Aloe Vera Drinks: PTO Fails to Show False Connection with French Cosmetics CompanySection 2(d) - Likelihood of Confusion: TTAB Grants 2(d) Summary Judgment: "MEIER'S" and "MEYER VINEYARD" for Wine Confusingly Similar TTAB Finds Design Marks for Motorcycles Confusingly Similar: What Say You? Fame Dominates as TTAB Sustains "PLAYBOY" Opposition to "PLAY BODY" for Clothing Precedential No...

Sparks fly over copyright at Tech Policy SummitLawgarithms

Posted on March 31, 2008
The group of copyright scholars and advocates gathered Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit in Hollywood demonstrated that while copyright must function in a converged world, opinions on how it should function are as divergent as ever. The panel (pictured from left to right) consisted of Patrick Ross (Executive Director, Copyright Alliance), Fred von Lohmann (Senior Staff Attorney, EFF), Matt Zinn (VP and general counsel, TiVo), and moderator Doug Lichtman of UCLA Law School...

Blawg of the Day -- AtlanteknologyInter Alia

Posted on March 31, 2008
Our next featured Canadian blog is Atlanteknology, which is published by Charles Perez, a lawyer and trade-mark agent in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On his blog, he's providing insight, information, and inspiration for Atlantic Canadians on technology issues, such as domain names, file sharing, financing, and various intellectual property subjects...

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