Thursday, May 28, 2015

225th Anniversary of First U.S. Copyright Law

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This Sunday, May 31st, marks the 225th anniversary of the first U.S. copyright law enacted under the new Constitution. The Copyright Act of ...
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Lack of Knowledge That A Patent Is Valid Is NOT A Defense To Patent Infringement

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today , in a case of first impression, that a purported infringer's lack of knowledge that a patent is vali...
Thursday, May 21, 2015

Can Parmesan Cheese Exist Outside of Parma, Italy?

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Trademarks can be tricky, particularly if the trademark contains the name of a geographic region. And more certainly so when the geographica...
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Judge Kozinski Forgot About Oscar Wilde, But The Ninth Circuit Didn't

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Napoleon Sarony was a well-known photographer operating in New York during the middle part of the 1800s. He was renowned for taking photos o...
Tuesday, May 19, 2015

No Does Not Mean No, When It Comes To Copyright Legal Fees

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In a case of first impression, the Ninth Circuit held today that attorneys' fees may be awarded to a prevailing copyright owner even tho...
Tuesday, May 5, 2015

California's Compelled Resale Royalty on Fine Art is Ruled Unconstitutional on Sales Outside of California

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The Ninth Circuit today ruled that California cannot reach outside of its borders to compel the reseller of fine art to pay 5% of the sales...
Monday, May 4, 2015

Loose (Customs) Lips Sink Ship(ment)s

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The import or export of goods through a U.S. port of entry is challenging enough for shippers, but the inability of Customs to preserve conf...
Thursday, April 30, 2015

De Novo Review of a Trademark Registration Rejection Imposes BIG Penalties

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The U.S. trademark office is an administrative agency and not a court. Yet it makes judicial decisions by accepting or rejecting a trademark...
Monday, April 27, 2015

More News on THE SLANTS

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The Federal Circuit today vacated its decision from last week and elected to have the full court conduct an en banc review. See my blog po...
Thursday, April 23, 2015

No Registration for Highly Descriptive -- Generic -- Trademarks

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The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) confirmed again two days ago what we should all know, that generic trademarks will not be allowe...
Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Skyrocketing Patent Filings in the Eastern District of Texas

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One would think that the propensity of the Federal Circuit in mandating transfer of patent cases out of the Eastern District of Texas (Tyler...
Monday, April 20, 2015

THE SLANTS: No Registration for a Disparaging Trademark

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The Slants found no respect at the federal trademark office, and now they have no respect from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals . The...
Friday, March 13, 2015

Pi Day

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March 14th is PI day. As in π. As in the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. As in  22÷7. As in 3.14.15... In t...
Tuesday, March 3, 2015

A Valid Service Mark Requires Actual Service

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The Federal Circuit determined for the first time that the validity of a registration for a service mark requires both that the applicant pu...

Triskadekaphobia All Over Again

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Those sufferers of  triskadekaphobia will experience a double dose of Friday the 13th this month, and a triple dose this year. There is a Fr...
Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Intel Is The Top Contributor To The Linux Kernel

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The Linux Foundation reports today that Intel is now the top contributor to the Linux kernel. To place this in a bit of perspective, the fo...
Tuesday, February 17, 2015

U.S. Design Patent Protection under the Hague Agreement

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It has become a little bit easier to protect U.S. design. Plus, sometimes good things occur on Friday the Thirteenth! This past Friday, ...
Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Copyright in a War Memorial

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The Korean War continues to cost the federal government money. In 2012, my blog post addressed the copyright infringement claim brought b...
Friday, January 9, 2015

Patenting Food -- And Controlling Access To Food

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Today's new patent opinion from the Federal Circuit reminds us that: 1. Food can be patented; 2. New food plants developed with pub...
Wednesday, January 7, 2015

The Slants and Disparaging Trademarks

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The Slants are upset with the federal trademark office. The Slants  describe themselves  as “the world's first and only all-Asian Ameri...