Lawyer Ron Coleman on brands, the Internet & free speech
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…
Data security and privacy are not big topical interests of mine. Anything Europeans are obsessive about can’t be all that important. Throw in the ACLU, that predictable bizarro-world weathervane of right and wrong, and I’m…
A story from the L.A. Times / Washington Post syndicate, evidently sent to press before the Pope’s death, told of the increase in sales of John Paul II-related merchandise. This includes perfectly reasonable and understandable…
Wired reports on a new book whose thrust, evidently, aligns decently well with my own little personal views (and not just mine): Brand Name Bullies. Says the review in Wired: To prove his point that…
The online Globe and Mail has an important item on how documentary filmmakers and others are being slammed by the IP equity grab, called “How Copyright Could be Killing Culture”. Okay, maybe “killing culture” is…
The New York Times (linked to by Drudge) has an article entitled The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody which opens, compellingly, as follows: One mislaid credit card bill or a single dangling e-mail message…
The Media Bloggers Association is setting up a stable of attorneys “to provide MBA members with first-line counsel on matters relating to the use of intellectual property, defamation and other issues arising from their weblogging.”…
Yahoo! News reports that the Ninth Circuit (them again!) has ruled that an online photo caption referring to him in the presence of two women as a “pimp” means “pimp in a good way.” They…
If trademark / Internet cases are not at the top of things to stay on top of in late December, you may have missed this potentially important decision giving Google an out of the box…
No, not more about that constitutional dustup at the Volokh Conspiracy. The delivery guys were supposed to be here yesterday with a blog roll and a direct link on the top to the firm website….