Intellectual Property Law

Suing bloggers for dollars

Posted on July 23, 2010
Glenn Reynolds links to a an article in Wired about a newspaper “chain”‘s — actually, lawyer Steve Gibson’s — “new business model”:  Suing bloggers who post newspaper articles, evidently more or less intact ones, on their sites...

What’s in a name?

Posted on July 23, 2010
Originally posted 2008-03-11 11:34:33. Republished by Blog Post PromoterIf it’s a “meatball sundae,” perhaps very little you’d want to eat. How much, really, does a name matter in business success?  As I have mentioned before, clients have come to me with checkbooks in hand, eager to register trademarks for products or services as yet unproduced [...

Survey: Users Confuse Search Results, Ads

Posted on July 23, 2010
Originally posted 2005-01-24 13:10:00. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSpeaking of my post from yesterday, below — wow. Survey: Users Confuse Search Results, Ads. Hard to see how this doesn’t have some effect on any settlement discussions in the Google / Geico case...

Defining counterfeiting downward

Posted on July 23, 2010
Originally posted 2009-11-12 13:32:16. Republished by Blog Post PromoterCounterfeit Chic happens upon a new defense to trademark counterfeiting:  ”Counterfeiting?  You call this counterfeiting?!” We’ve all seen imitation goods so poorly rendered that they wouldnt fool a myopic Martian on a dark night...

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Despite Demise of Real Property, Intellectual Property Doing Fine

Posted on July 23, 2010
Originally posted 2005-06-27 14:12:03. Republished by Blog Post PromoterAs predicted in this space, the Supreme Court has ruled against Grokster, according to the AP. Says Justice Souter, “We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps [...

We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

Posted on July 23, 2010
Originally posted 2007-04-12 17:09:13. Republished by Blog Post PromoterShould there be a “blogger code of conduct“? Bloggers are facing some high-profile peer pressure to please be a little more polite. Blogs, online journal-style Web sites, are growing in popularity on the Internet and so has the bad posting behavior that has sparked a call for [...

Pie in the sky

Posted on July 20, 2010
Michael Young: It is not often a case hits upon two of our favorite topics: Trade secrets and pie. But when it does, mmmmmmmm, it?s good to be an attorney. And for this reason, we are grateful to Justice Rushing who provided us with a little of both in his recent opinion in Silvaco Data Systems [...

Confusion ascendant

Posted on July 19, 2010
Jewish tradition teaches that on Tisha B?Av (the Ninth day of the month of Av) , which begins tonight, five national calamities occurred: During the time of Moses, Jews in the desert accepted the slanderous report of the ten spies, and the decree was issued by God forbidding them from entering the Land of Israel...

E-Commerce Law: Blawg Review #103

Posted on July 19, 2010
Originally posted 2007-04-11 02:33:49. Republished by Old Post PromoterThat one is outta here! E-Commerce Law: Blawg Review #103 ©, .

What is a word mark?

Posted on July 19, 2010
Originally posted 2005-01-04 00:00:00. Republished by Old Post PromoterSpeaking of Google and trademarks, an interesting article on Google’s own trademarks is this:  Don’t “Hitchhike”A Ride On Google’s Trademarks and URLs by Russell Shaw...

I have a list

Posted on July 16, 2010
Anyone who is interested in trademark law and is reading this should do what I do:  Read blogs by pure trademark lawyers* such as Marty Schwimmer’s Trademark Blog and John Welch’s TTABlog® (and some law professor blogs, too, but besides Eric Goldman they mainly never link to lawyers and I guess today I’m in the mood [...

And miles to go before I sleep

Posted on July 16, 2010
Originally posted 2009-03-09 08:57:22. Republished by Old Post PromoterRobert Frost?  Well, no, it’s Yehuda, he of the rhyming versions of Lanham Act and such. He’s rolled out the UK Copyright Law, in verse, and hey, you could do verse. What better way to enjoy intellectual property on this, the eve of Purim, the holiday that [...

Victory for US GI’s Over Europe

Posted on July 16, 2010
Originally posted 2005-03-17 14:08:00. Republished by Old Post Promoter“Geographic Indicators,” that is. The USPTO reports today that: the World Trade Organization (WTO) has released a panel report affirming the United States? assertion that European Community (EC) regulations discriminate against foreign owners of geographical indications (GIs), and that the EC cannot deny trademark owners their rights...

You got privacy in my policy! No, YOU got policy in MY privacy!

Posted on July 15, 2010
Mindful always of my civic duty, my unique relation to humanity, and legal webby things, I’ve updated the LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® privacy policy.  Your family can rest secure in the knowledge that the policy is always readily available for your perusal, as well as for bar mitzvahs, etc...

Unfair use

Posted on July 15, 2010
Originally posted 2007-01-31 16:01:06. Republished by Old Post PromoterMore pain, very little gain — besides for lawyers’ college funds — in the roiling world of trademark fair use. Unfair use ©, .

Trademark Fluff over Fluffernutters

Posted on July 15, 2010
Originally posted 2006-03-12 21:50:24. Republished by Old Post Promoter Reports a Lynn, Massachusetts newspaper: A Lynn company known worldwide for its Marshmallow Fluff is suing Williams-Sonoma, Inc., claiming the culinary retailer is misusing the registered trademark, Fluffernutter...

The second time as farce

Posted on July 15, 2010
Originally posted 2009-01-12 23:45:25. Republished by Old Post PromoterOn the occasion of the S&L Vitamins v. Australian Gold trial starting Wednesday, I’m reposting what I wrote here six months ago about the first of these these jointly evil twin litigation matters, conducted in appropriately welcoming environs, in which our client is entwined: O’Connor federal courthouse [...

Keyword advertising law à la française

Posted on July 14, 2010
Google wins! LVMH wins! Only it’s the same case.  And they’re on opposite sides. Is this as Euro-law thing?  Something particularly Frankish? No, it’s an Internet law thing. A 21st-century thing.  And the French have the same problem we do:  Judges are trying to figure out what “the law is” about keyword advertising, but “the [...

Stand up for your right to blawg review!

Posted on July 14, 2010
Originally posted 2008-12-15 12:27:37. Republished by Old Post PromoterAnd who better to speak for that right than that right-is-never-right civil libertarian, gadabout and new da-da, my chum Marc Randazza, who’s hosting this week’s Blawg Review with a highly appropriate Bill of Rights Day theme keyed, in all probability, to Marc’s celebration of the expansion of [...

Gucci v. Frontline Processing: Giving credit for infringement where it’s due

Posted on July 12, 2010
This is an adaptation of a summary and analysis of the recent decision in Gucci America, Inc. v. Frontline Processing Corp., 2010 WL 2541367 (S.D.N.Y.), discussed here more casually earlier.  The online treatise Secondary Trademark Liability has recently been updated and the impact of this decision integrated into the text; a full update is planned [...

Mutilated marks

Posted on July 12, 2010
Originally posted 2007-03-08 15:26:32. Republished by Old Post PromoterThe TTABlog tracks the latest learning on “mutilated” (incomplete) trademarks, or at least purportedly incomplete ones. You just have to read John Welch’s blog on a regular basis if you want to know this stuff...

Sample confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements

Posted on July 08, 2010
Gene Quinn is just all over stuff, including this — something people ask me for all the time for free.  Well, here are some free sample confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements and a little shmooze about which one to use and when; he has more about trade secrets here...

Liberté, égalité, censure… and the First Amendment?

Posted on July 08, 2010
Originally posted 2005-03-28 08:57:00. Republished by Old Post PromoterLast week Reuters “news” service reported about the pending request by Yahoo! for a what appears to be a declaratory judgment (I have not seen the papers) barring domestic (U...

Google Gored by Literary Lions

Posted on July 08, 2010
Originally posted 2005-09-21 09:48:17. Republished by Old Post PromoterReuters “news service” reports that the Authors Guild and a number of American writers are suing Google Inc. in federal District Court in New York City, “alleging that the Web search leader’s bid to digitize the book collections of major libraries infringes individual author’s copyrights...

That Bilski thing

Posted on July 07, 2010
There are are all sort of people out there who want you to tell them what happened in Bilski v. Kappos, which was expected to be the big shoe-drop on the question of business process patents. I’ve never been one of them.  But it is something I’m expected to know by everyone else who doesn’t [...

“Criticizing A Trademark Is Not Trademark Infringement”

Posted on July 07, 2010
Originally posted 2007-09-29 21:25:32. Republished by Old Post PromoterIt’s free speech. This is a big step forward: In a recent example of just how bizarre [trademark overreaching] has become, there was apparently a dispute over the trademark of the word “Freecycle” that’s been used by groups who promote reusing stuff that would otherwise be thrown [...

More fantasy sports litigation

Posted on July 07, 2010
Originally posted 2006-12-27 18:15:12. Republished by Old Post Promoter We wrote in the past about the bogus “right of publicity” issue and the unsuccessful attempt by major league sports to claim ownership in statistics and grab a piece of the fantasy sports action for their fat selves...

Tweetmark infringement

Posted on July 07, 2010
Originally posted 2009-04-30 09:28:31. Republished by Old Post PromoterWhen I essentially retired from Twitter a few months ago (it’s all the rage!), I did so by politely bidding farewell to my 500 or so “followers” and then scattering the whole cloud of them by canceling my Twitter account...

Clash of titans averted

Posted on July 07, 2010
Originally posted 2007-07-26 00:39:02. Republished by Old Post PromoterProWrestling.com reports (link to this blog added): Former WCW superstar Diamond Dallas Page has settled his trademark infringement lawsuit against hip hop mogul Jay-Z. The suit was settled on July 10th after the court signed off on an agreement reached between the two parties...

The Vuvuzela: Threat or menace?

Posted on June 30, 2010
Who knew someone would find a way to “school” Americans on annoying noises? There’s lots of stuff I don’t know, believe me.  One of them is, what’s all this I hear about disputes concerning the IP rights in, around and with respect to  … VUVUZULA HELL? I still don’t know...

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