The World Intellectual Property Organization announced on May 24, 2024, a treaty on intellectual property, genetic resources, and associated traditional knowledge that was twenty-five years in the making. As WIPO’s press...more
6/20/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Genetic Materials ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Patent Applications ,
Patents ,
Plant Patents ,
Popular ,
Trade Secrets ,
WIPO
Title? Typo? Cryptic code? Equation? Really it is a combination of three of the four. In other words, it is not a typo (You can look elsewhere in this piece for those)....more
5/9/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Deep Fake ,
Endorsements ,
Fair Use ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Online Platforms ,
Political Campaigns ,
Political Candidates ,
Robocalling ,
Trademarks ,
Transformative Use ,
Video ,
Willful Infringement
“[T]he comma…this capricious bit of punctuation…” United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 US 235, 249 (1989) (O’Connor, J, dissenting). For want of a comma, we have this case.” O’Connor et al. v. Oakhurst Dairy et...more
This week, in our special Spilling Secrets podcast series on the future of non-compete and trade secrets law, we take a deeper look at trade secrets and non-compete cases in the wide world of sports:
As college basketball...more
This week, in our special Spilling Secrets podcast series on the future of non-compete and trade secrets law, we uncover the essential steps employers should take to secure employees’ trade secrets from day one of their...more
“Headlines” and “titles” are related, sometimes interchangeable, items appearing atop news stories. But, in this space, headlines are usually a source of inspiration (so we can write about intellectual property issues that...more
Fiction writing has a curious claim on truth. We learn this at the youngest age, listening to fairy tales when the child in us “intuitively comprehends that, although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue …” ...more
Whether one focuses on the word’s connotation of silliness or excitement, or maybe even anger, or analogizes to the raucous and rhymingly-named team from Savannah that makes up its own baseball rules, US copyright law is...more
The phrase “make your mark on history” is a commonplace one with several meanings and connotations.
It is one offered at many high school and college commencement speeches as an exhortation to graduates to have an impact...more
“Yes, the law is about words…,” says Ben Chiriboga in writing about the essential skills that lawyers must have. And Ken White noted more recently that “the entire project of the law is about words meaning specific things.”...more
Lots of people are talking about ChatGPT.
Some, like those at Microsoft, see it as a valuable tool to be integrated into their products and platforms; indeed, one of its lawyers thought that the answer provided by ChatGPT...more
2/2/2023
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Certiorari ,
Consumer Confusion ,
Dilution ,
Fair Use ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Lanham Act ,
Rogers Test ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks
As I recently noted in an article on trademarks in the U.S. and internationally, Metro-Goldin-Mayer and Pennsylvania State University are two entities in different, yet related, channels of trade (sports and entertainment,...more
So, there you go—Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Pennsylvania State University are two different entities each associated with a distinctive roar connected to their institution. They are marketed through different, yet related,...more
In a recent article examining international trademark, copyright and related issues, we started with a focus on the place humor holds as a possible defense. To understand the roots of the penchant for humor to act as a...more
In my recent attempt at spring cleaning, I mentioned that “the Copyright Office’s ‘refusal to register a two-dimensional artwork claim in the work titled ‘A Recent Entrance to Paradise’ (‘Work’).” I also observed that “[e]ven...more
Many cultures have the tradition of spring cleaning. These range from those in Iran observing the Persian New Year festival of Nowruz (and the practice of “khooneh tekouni,” or “shaking the house” to prepare for Nowruz), to...more
4/20/2022
/ Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Trade Secrets ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks
Interesting question: Can someone trademark another person’s name without that person’s consent? The answer to that is usually “no,” but, hey, we would not be the first people to say that we live in interesting times. And if...more
I have to give it to creative, resilient lawyers (and in fact, I have lauded them in the past). When the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Allen v. Cooper, 140 S.Ct. 994 (2020), a decision holding that the...more
1/5/2022
/ Allen v Cooper ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Damages ,
Eleventh Amendment ,
Fifth Amendment ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Just Compensation ,
Patents ,
Personal Property ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Private Property ,
Sovereign Immunity ,
Takings Clause
Admittedly, the second word in that title is a mouthful—but Paraskavedekatriaphobia is a real word, with an etymology and definition. It even has a synonym, friggatriskaidekaphobia. Each means “fear of Friday the...more
The title of this piece tracks a common “phrase of exasperation used to emphasize a question or statement.” If that be the case, and I think it is, then the subtitle implies the question this piece will address. That question...more
On March 26, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided The Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a decision addressing the “fair use” doctrine, an important part of copyright law. “Fair use” tries...more
For those of you who may read my past ILN posts, you will not be surprised that I subscribe to the Tucker Max approach: Make the title attention-grabbing, memorable and searchable, informative, easy and not embarrassing to...more
We live in a time of contradictions and confusion, and today we aim to explore how some such tensions have manifested themselves in the area of intellectual property law.
On the one hand, we have a national and...more
7/23/2020
/ 42 U.S.C. §1983 ,
Allen v Cooper ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Remedy Clarification Act ,
Counterfeiting ,
Deprivation of Property ,
Eleventh Amendment ,
Exclusive Jurisdiction ,
FBI ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal History ,
Piracy ,
Preemption ,
Privileges and Immunities ,
Sovereign Immunity ,
State Sovereignty ,
State Universities ,
Theft ,
Trade Secrets
A few weeks back, as remote working and social distancing were becoming the order of the day (and interesting phrase, given what quickly became the norm in many US states and cities, as executive orders abounded), my son...more
4/13/2020
/ CARES Act ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Court Closures ,
Court Schedules ,
Emergency Orders ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Medical Research ,
Misappropriation ,
Patent Infringement ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Relief Measures ,
State of Emergency ,
Trade Secrets ,
Waivers
Tattoos, one of the oldest art forms in the world, are all over the legal news in recent years. The news runs the gamut from a tattooist suing a movie studio over replication of Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo in The Hangover II...more
10/16/2019
/ Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal History ,
Movies ,
Native American Issues ,
NBA ,
Photographs ,
Tattoos ,
Thirteenth Amendment ,
Video Games ,
Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA)