Court Provides Fair Use Guidance On YouTuber’s Use of Viral Video
This copyright case pitted two big YouTube content brands against each other over issues of fair use. On one side is Equals Three, LLC, a YouTube content studio and channel created and owned by Ray...
View ArticlePacifico Defends its Trademark Rights on Canadian Soil
Another intellectual property dispute has arisen in the brewing industry. This time, however, the battle took place on Canadian soil. British Columbia based Pacific Western Brewing (“PWB”) sued...
View ArticleWhy Business Methods Are Difficult to Patent
Although the general rule (based on 35 USC section 101) is that anything made by humans is patentable, there are exceptions. Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable....
View ArticleISPs That Ignore Notices From “Copyright Trolls” Risk Losing DMCA Safe Harbor...
Representing copyright owners attempting to enforce online infringement is often routine, but can sometimes prove challenging. This tends to be the case when a content owner is trying to address large...
View ArticleThe Beef Between In-N-Out Burger and Doordash
Everyone on the West Coast knows In-N-Out Burger. For some of us Californians, the burgers may even be considered a state treasure. Doordash, on the other hand, is much less recognizable. It is an...
View ArticleWhen Copying is Not Copyright Infringement
A longstanding battle between Google and the authors of published books has been resolved (at least for now) in favor of Google. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held that Google’s use of...
View ArticleThe Federal Circuit Breathes Life into the Redskins’ Appeal
If you’re a fan of intellectual property or the National Football League, you may have heard about last July’s ruling in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. There,...
View ArticleDon’t Get On the Wrong Side of Taylor Swift in a Copyright Case!
Taylor Swift has been in the news a lot over the last year or so. She is phenomenally successful. Her hit album “1989” concert tour was the highest grossing tour in the world in 2015 (over $250...
View ArticleFive IP Pitfalls That Start-Up (and Grown Up) Companies Can Easily Avoid
In business, there are numerous opportunities for pitfalls, mistakes and errors and they come up in all different legal areas – from basic formation issues to labor and employment to intellectual...
View ArticleCopyright Infringement and the First Sale Defense
The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in the case of Dolby Systems, Inc. v. Christenson, focuses primarily on the issue of which party bears the initial burden of proof with regard to a “first sale”...
View ArticleFederal Circuit Limits Attorneys’ Fees in Exceptional Cases
Two weeks ago, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals limited the factors a district court may consider in determining the amount of attorneys’ fees to award in an “exceptional” patent infringement case....
View ArticleDisney’s Influence on United States Copyright Law
If you’ve ever applied for, or researched copyright law, you likely learned one thing above all else: it’s not a perpetual right. So, how, you might wonder, have companies like The Walt Disney Company...
View ArticleThe Federal Circuit Finds Foreign Sales Do Not Exhaust Patent Rights
In Lexmark International, Inc. v. Impression Products, Inc., No. 14-1617 (Fed. Cir. 2016), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided en banc that a U.S. patent owner’s “first sale” of...
View ArticleKylie Minogue v. Kylie Jenner: A TTAB Clash of Celebrities
Kylie Jenner has finally decided to step out from behind her older sisters and get to work on her own independent ventures. In furtherance of this desire, Ms. Jenner filed numerous federal trademark...
View ArticleApple Argues It Should Not Be Compelled to Write Software for the F.B.I.
On February 16, 2016, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued an order compelling Apple, Inc. to provide technical assistance to the...
View ArticlePre-Issuance Damages for Patent Infringement – A Very Rare Remedy
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed an issue of first impression: what is the “actual notice” required under 35 U.S.C. §154(d) for a patent owner to recover damages for a...
View ArticleAre Pins, Posts, Tweets and Likes Appropriate for Use in Selecting Jurors?
When you hear the name of someone you can’t place or don’t know much about, what do you do? Chances are, you “Google” them. Well that is what attorneys are doing to learn more about prospective...
View ArticleSupreme Court Battle Set Over Prohibition of Disparaging Trademarks
Section 2(a) of the Lanham act bars the registration of “scandalous, immoral or disparaging trademarks.” The USPTO has used this applied this provision to refuse the registration of marks such as F**K...
View ArticleCourt Orders Plaintiff to Pay Defendants’ $8 Million in Attorney’s Fees in...
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s twin 2014 decisions in Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management System, Inc. and Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc. attorney’s fees awards are...
View ArticleFederal Circuit Applies Broadened Test For Divided Infringement
On April 18, 2016, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 797 F.3d 1020 (Fed. Cir., August 2015) (“Akamai IV”), cert. denied, 2016 U.S. LEXIS...
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