Naked Cowboy V. Naked M&M
Filed Under General | Posted on June 27, 2008
By: Ruvin Levavi
The past couple of years have seen the Cowboy image reinvented numerous times. Clint Eastwood has been pushed aside by the academy award winning Brokeback Mountain. Yet, before Hollywood decided to give the American West a makeover there was Robert Burck. Burck, better known as, The Naked Cowboy has become a staple New […]
So You’re an Attorney; Tell Me: Can I Backup My CDs Without Being Sued?
Filed Under General | Posted on May 14, 2008
By: Eliyahu R. Babad
A questioner (himself an attorney) recently posed this query to the copyright panel of the Fordham Intellectual Property Symposium. The distinguished panel of three law professors and the principal legal advisor from the Copyright Office i at best offered a qualified “perhaps”. So what is the real deal?
The crux of this […]
No Summary Judgement on Filesharing, Copyright Infringement Still Illegal
Filed Under General | Posted on April 30, 2008
The RIAA was handed a small blow today as a District Court judge in Arizona denied Summary Judgment on the question of whether leaving files on a shared directory is Copyright Infringement as a matter of law. While this does not really lend any saving grace to the p2p community at large, it does […]
How Far Does “The Big Apple” Have to Fall From the Tree?
Filed Under General | Posted on April 17, 2008
By: Eric Mouchette
How many ways can you draw an apple? More specifically, how many ways can you draw an apple without infringing on Apple Inc.’s ubiquitous logo? This is a question that New York City Hall may eventually have to ask itself. Apple renewed its federal challenge to the trademark application that […]
J.K. Rowling Testifies
Filed Under General | Posted on April 15, 2008
J.K. Rowling is suing RDR Books for publishing a Harry Potter lexicon dictionary of sorts. Their website with the same content has been free, but now that this book is going to bring in revenue, J.K. has brought out the guns. And those guns include tears at a press conference.
The questions […]
Legal Battles in a Bowl of Milk
Filed Under General | Posted on April 8, 2008
By: S.S.
Who would have thought that the most important meal of the day could turn into such a debate over economic regulation and ownership rights? The expansion of the cereal café market has created an intellectual property war over trademarks and patents, and the ability of one company to control the market.
Upon […]
Google Sued by Viacom—Can YouTube Survive?
Filed Under General | Posted on April 5, 2008
By Eric Bitzegaio
Viacom has slammed YouTube’s parent company, Google, with a suit seeking over $1 billion in damage and injunctive relief the copyright infringement provisions of the Copyright Act.i Viacom claims Google directly infringed on their copyrights by publicly displaying, publicly performing, and reproducing copyrighted works without authorization. Furthermore, Viacom alleges that Google […]
Why are relatively few non-Japanese applications filed in Japan?
Filed Under General | Posted on March 26, 2008
By: Court Heinle
Last September, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published statistics on the share of countries in patent applications at the USPTO and the JPO.i While roughly half of the patent applications to the USPTO list a foreigner as first-named inventor, only 28.1% of applications to the JPO are by […]
Hasbro and Mattel Hoping to Make Best Move in Standoff over Word Game
Filed Under General | Posted on March 25, 2008
By: Shmuel Honig
The United States of America is facing a crisis. People across the country are distraught by the warning signs of a potentially imminent disaster. No, I am not referring to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I am talking about the potential demise of Scrabulous.
Scrabulous, of course, is an immensely popular online […]
Ownership of Domain Containing Trademark Not Considered Trademark Infringement
Filed Under General | Posted on March 19, 2008
By: Jeffrey Dicker
The Lanham Act provides that a trademark is infringed when it is used in commerce. 15 U.S.C. § 1125. With the rise of e-commerce and internet business, defining how something is used in commerce has become more difficult. This problem becomes even more difficult when dealing with a trademark used in a domain […]