This newsletter strives to provide insight and commentary on timely legal issues impacting client business decisions in the areas of trademark, trade dress, copyright, trade secret, Internet, domain name, false advertising, defamation, commercial disparagement and other unfair competition.
This edition of Trademark and Copyright Law News is all about big ticket entertainment, sports and fashion events. We've kept busy this winter tracking the intellectual property disputes related to the Oscars, Super Bowl, Star Wars premiere and New York Fashion Week. We also expanded our Trademark practice in New York and welcomed Natasha Reed to the firm. Plus we hope you enjoy some other highlights from 2016!
by Anthony Rufo
Celebrated film actors have it tough. After all, only two men and two women can take home a “Best” or “Best Supporting” acting Oscar each year. In case you are apt to weep for the losers, however, be assured that they will not be going home completely empty handed. This year they will each be gifted with a “swag” bag worth over $200,000. This high-end consolation prize is compiled by Distinctive Assets, a Los Angeles-based niche marketing company, and includes a $55,000 trip to Israel, cosmetic procedures, a high-end sex toy and, for good measure, some $275 luxury Swiss toilet paper. These celebrity gift bags have become ubiquitous at events where the rich and famous congregate and now are almost synonymous with awards ceremonies. This is troubling for the Academy, though, which actually has no affiliation with the gift bags. In fact, the Academy recently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Distinctive Assets in a California federal court, alleging that the marketing company is deliberately creating a false impression that it is affiliated with the Oscars. READ MORE
by Natasha Reed
Designers like Alexander Wang, Rebecca Minkoff, and Michael Kors are all gearing up to premier their 2016 fall/winter collections this month during New York Fashion Week. Fashion Week draws more than 230,000 attendees each year to over 500 runway shows and events in New York City. The economic impact of this biannual event is estimated to be close to $900 million. That’s more than the U.S. Open, which generates approximately $750 million annually for New York, and the Super Bowl, which generated an estimated $550 million when it was held in the New York metropolitan area in 2014.
Despite these numbers, the economic impact on the fashion industry from the sale of counterfeit and infringing fashion products is staggering. READ MORE
by David Kluft
Around this time last year, I started worrying about what would happen if someone at a Super Bowl party asked me to explain an NFL-related lawsuit, particularly one of those IP-ish lawsuits that I’m supposed to know about. So I put together the first Sue-per Bowl Shuffle, a guide to the year’s gridiron disputes over trademarks, copyright, the right of publicity and other matters with a First Amendment flavor.
This year, we’ve got you covered again. Although the deflate-gate mishigas dominated the popular press, you will see that there were plenty of intellectual property and speech disputes that were just as entertaining, and often just as interesting. As usual, we recommend that you laminate this article and put it next to the salsa. That way, when the Panthers go up by 30 points and start posing for oil paintings on the sidelines, you’ll have something to talk about with your yawning companions. READ MORE
by Joshua Jarvis
Most readers of this blog are well-acquainted with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the anti-circumvention provisions codified therein, 17 U.S.C. § 1201 et seq., which prohibit the circumvention of technological measures that control access to a copyrighted work, even in the absence of copyright infringement. The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA are often criticized for their failure to include an explicit fair use exemption like that included elsewhere in the Copyright Act, see 17 U.S.C. § 107. Instead, the provisions empower the Librarian of Congress, upon recommendation by the Register of Copyrights, to conduct a review of the copyright landscape every three years and determine whether specific types of circumvention should be excluded from Section 1201’s draconian position. The Section 1201 rulemaking process is colloquially referred to as the “Triennial Review.” READ MORE
by David Kluft
Haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie yet? The pop culture zeitgeist recommends that you binge-watch all six of the prior Star Wars movies before going to see Episode VII, The Force Awakens and, according to the Washington Post, there is some controversy about the proper binge-watching order. Should you watch them in narrative order (I through VI) or in film release date order (IV-VI and then I-III)? Apparently, the preferred order is: IV, V, I, II, III and then VI.
Well, I couldn’t bear to sit through I, II and III again in any order so, instead of binge-watching six films, I binge-researched copyright and trademark opinions involving the Star Wars franchise and picked the six I found most interesting. Here they are in chronological order. READ MORE
