Lawyer Ron Coleman on brands, the Internet & free speech
A 2001 Third Circuit opinion from Judge Alito supports even unpopular speech, even in schools: We . . . have found no categorical rule that divests “harassing” speech, as defined by federal anti-discrimination statutes, of…
The editor at Blawg Review sends along this link, in which the White House sent a cease and desist letter to the editors of The Onion instructing them to stop using the presidential seal on…
The online Prague Daily Monitor reports Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan told CTK that he is not opposed to Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek’s idea of Czechs and Slovaks using “Czechoslovakia” as a trademark to…
Brand Management and Branding
The Street reports that “IAC/InterActiveCorp. is dropping the butler who doubles as the mascot of its recently acquired Ask Jeeves online search business.” Trademark / branding suicide. So obviously wrong.
Copyright Law
Graffiti: Art or crime? And by crime, I don’t mean mere vandalism. I mean criminally bad legal-decision-making. The New York Law Journal reports: On July 18, 2005, plaintiff fashion company’s founder, who began his career…
I stumbled on this article in Slate and it seemed to contradict my point in one of my favorite posts. On reflection I realized that actually the two pieces actually harmonize quite well. It did…
IP … trademarks … branding … design … interior design … awful interior design of the 1970’s! Maybe I don’t have to sweat topicality after all. I am sorry, but if you really, really need…
Not really. But it’s better than one, I think. And, you know, brands are trademarks and trademarks are brands, pretty much. Business Week’s website has a special section called Branding : Corporate Branding, Internet Branding,…
Section 2(a)
We haven’t heard the last of the fight over the Washington Redskins trademark fight. The AP reports that the earlier decision rejecting the challenge based partly on laches has been reversed in part. American Indian…
Brand Management and Branding
India doesn’t have a First Amendment, as such, but from what I read its free speech protections are similar to those in the West. So the use of threatening a trademark suit to chill criticism…
Everyone’s judicial philosophy, per Kausfiles: [J]udges should have a coherent judicial philosophy and follow it to the conclusions they would not prefer … except for this one conclusion we really, really care about!
The last week or so has been light on blogging, largely because of technological issues but also because of a slow week in topical news plus the occasional need to practice law around here. It…
Bill Heinze writes about Patent Terrorism and whether it fits into the model, oft discussed here, of improper use of the intellectual property system as a sort of arbitrage.