What do you do when a bad review of the hotel you manage is published online—and not just a bad review, but one that falsely suggests criminal behavior on the part of your staff? TripAdvisor.com, which bills its network of websites as “the largest travel community in the world,” gives some options to maligned hotel [...]

The Supreme Court recently issued a decision in an important case involving the future of lucrative gray markets in the United States. [1] The case, Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega, S.A., examined whether a copyright owner could prevent the sale of goods that had been imported into the country without the copyright holder’s permission.  The [...]

Recent 2009 and 2010 decisions in the 9th and 11th Circuits have recalibrated a debate about the standard for prosecuting pornographers and whether the age of the Internet requires a national community standard to define obscenity.  This disagreement may be headed to the Supreme Court for a possible change in precedent that reaches back to [...]

Last year’s Tales of Cocktail, an annual gala for the cocktail industry featured a panel discussion on the intellectual property rights associated with cocktails.   Speakers and panelists included, Eben Freeman, a famous mixologist, Sheila Morrison, a staffer from the Trademark Office, and Riley Lagesen, a lawyer with a specialized restaurant business practice. Signature cocktails are [...]

Jersey Shore cast members attempted to trademark their nicknames with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”).  To their dismay, many Jersey Shore members could not successfully obtain trademarks on their nicknames.  For instance, the USPTO did not grant Mike Sorrentino a trademark for his nickname, “The Situation,” because Julio Aref already owned a [...]

With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”), between the thirty Major League Baseball (“MLB”) organizations and the Players Association, set to expire on December 31, 2011, both sides have begun to discuss key issues which most likely will arise in the upcoming negotiation process.  One particularly hot topic has been the proposal to add two [...]