United States copyright law protects original works of authorship that have been fixed in any tangible medium of expression. Pretty much anything that you can write down or record is automatically protected from direct copying without your permission. Everything from that flier for your company’s last promotion to the business plan that you spent weeks [...]
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For a couple of weeks now, Tactical IP has been putting together a list of companies that deserve recognition for their *outstanding* intellectual property enforcement efforts. Below is their latest list of "IP Bully of the Month" nominees. You can check out all the recent entries here. Feel free to comment on who you think [...] One of the "peculiarities" of U.S. trademark law is that the government has a stick up its collective ass about recognizing trademarks that may be suggestive of dick-and-fart humor. Section 2 of the Lanham Act (the federal statute that creates trademark rights) provides: No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from [...] Ralph Lauren — for sending DMCA take-down letters in an attempt to suppress some negative blog commentary about the photo below, e.g., comments like “Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis” (source). You can read about what happened here and here. UPDATE: Ralph Lauren has issued a statement, apologizing for the poor photoshop job. We’re still waiting [...] Clothing producer, The North Face (TNF), recently got a lesson in how bad trademark enforcement decisions can make a company look silly. It seems a St. Louis teen thought that it would be amusing to create a clothing line parody, calling it “The South Butt,” — south being the logical opposite of north and butt [...] Victoria the Not-so-Terrible On Friday, President Obama appointed the first “Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator,” a new position created last year by the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (a.k.a. the PRO-IP Act). While many criticized that legislation as further enlisting U.S. law enforcement to do the dirty work of the RIAA and MPAA, [...] Short Answer: No. Probably not. I call this one "the McBaby." Should I try to patent it before McDonald’s does? McDonald’s Corp. is getting some recent attention in the blogosphere for a patent application, originally filed in late 2004, which describes its “Method and Apparatus for Making a Sandwich.” What’s interesting to [...] The Wall Street Journal published a story about how Monster Cable was trying to bully the owners of a mom-and-pop business into changing their name. According to David Tognotti, Monster Cable’s general manager and an attorney, the company considers “Monster” a famous mark — on a par with Barbie dolls or Camel cigarettes, giving [...] Kerry Gorgone reports on the touching story of a pint-sized “inventor” who “came up” with the idea for attaching an IV bag pole to a kiddie car, so that hospitalized children can play while getting their meds. It seems the kid filed a patent application for the device and is charging a licensing fee [...] |
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