Lawyer Ron Coleman on brands, the Internet & free speech
Techcrunch: I’d think this was a joke, except for the USPTO entry. Fark has lodged a trademark application for the term “Not Safe For Work.” (Via Ed.) One grows fatigued at this point. The Techcrunch…
Litigation
Thank God for small favors. Like being far away from the Seventh Circuit these days if you or your client want to rely on the words of a statute to determine what the law is….
Brand Management and Branding
Maybe if Steve Brodsky or the Whistleblower published pornography or scandalous charactures of Dick Cheney or were uploading music files the self-appointed guardians of free speech would have something to say about what’s going on here.
Roundups
It’s time, with the crisp all in the air, to take a look back at the endless summer that wasn’t (wasn’t so endless) — topical tweets via @roncoleman: Web investigations put off-limits to Social Security claims judges…
Kanye West and Evel Knievel are going to mediation on this case. News reports are describing this as all but a settlement, but that seems less likely to be based on an understanding of where…
Brand Management and Branding
UPDATE: Our NPR interview on this topic was on NPR’s “All Things Considered” just before 6 tonight. We blogged on this topic last week. Today the LA Times weighs in, writing, confusingly: TICKETS TO THE…
Secondary Meaning
Las Vegas Trademark Attorney reports that the Second Circuit has taken the “advice” of the New York Court of Appeals and rendered a final decision in the BUKHARA “famous marks doctrine” case. Writing about the…
Counterfeiting & Piracy
It’s easy to make money on licensing when you don’t pay the royalties: A multi-agency task force has executed a search warrant on the country’s largest importer of DVD recorders and players, confiscating eight tractor-trailer…
Roundups
Note: This was first posted on December 12, 2008. On review in 2016, it became apparent that a great many of the links were dead. Considering the choice between keeping the outgoing links to worthy…
Brand Management and Branding
Pesticides in soft drinks, that is. Or even allegations of them. Boing Boing reports that a court in India has ordered Pepsi and Coke to cough up their respective formulas. UPDATE: It’s not easy to…
LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
We reported the Woody Allen right-o-publicity lawsuit arising from “that billboard” when it was filed in April. This billboard: Yeah, oy. And now, it’s settled, for $5 million. That’s not chopped liver, especially when you…
Domain Names
That’s one thing I learned at the New York Intellectual Property Law Association’s “Hot Topics in” all kinds of stuff CLE seminar last Wednesday, July 17th, from Marty Schwimmer. I learned other hot topic stuff…
Copyright Law
This post discusses what by all rights should be the most exciting case ever heard by any court anywhere. One of the plaintiffs is Darth Vader, and the defendant is none other than the most…
Stealing the Language
If you’ve seen one disgruntled-former-law-associate attack gripe site, you’ve seen them all. But I did like this point by gold-plated pariah Edward Harrington Heyburn, Esq. (corrected). Because he’s so big on free expression, especially his of course…