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Streaming television rebroadcaster Aereo won another victory in their ongoing copyright fight with television broadcasters trying to shut the service down. Aereo is a technology company based in New York City that allows subscribers to view live as well as time-shifted video of over-the-air television on the Internet. As I have reported before, this new, […]
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30 May '13
What exactly is a trademark class? Trademark classes allow for the identification of goods and services. Additionally, they allow multiple business to apply for a trademark to identify their goods and services (as long as they are not in the same class). For instance. a construction company could apply for a trademark for “Mud” to […]
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The Copyright Act protects a wide variety of works of authorship, from individual articles or photographs that may not have a high commercial value to motion pictures worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the marketplace. Copyright owners can file lawsuits under the copyright law for unauthorized use of the owner’s work. However, not all […]
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28 May '13
I reported earlier that Beyoncé and Jay-Z applied for a trademark on their new babies name Blue Ivy. The media coverage of a trademark dispute involving Beyoncé and Jay-Z demonstrates how it is possible to oversimplify intellectual property law. Several media outlets reported that that the famous parents “lost” their bid to trademark their daughter’s […]
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24 May '13
Internet services providers have started to implement the Copyright Alert System this month. The system, also referred to as the “Six Strikes” program, is intended to deter copyright infringement committed through illegal file sharing. The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) will operate the alert system. Members of the coalition include the Motion Picture Association of […]
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23 May '13Rosetta Stone Inc. and Google Inc. have announced plans to dismiss a three-year old trademark infringement lawsuit over Google’s AdWords system. The two companies now plan to work together to fight trademark abuse online. Rosetta Stone filed suit in 2009, alleging that Google allowed its competitors to market copycat software when Rosetta’s trademarks were used […]
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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently released a guide for filing preissuance submissions electronically via its EFS Web system. The guide is intended to make it easier for third parties to submit printed publications of potential relevance to the patentability of another’s claimed invention under the preissuance submission provision of the America Invents Act. […]
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21 May '13It’s a little early for Halloween, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided a trademark lawsuit last year about the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. The house belonged to Sarah Winchester, the widow of famous gun maker William Winchester. According to the story, Sarah was told by a medium that the family […]
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20 May '13In a strange twist, Microsoft has thrown its support for a recently introduced bill titled “End Anonymous Patents Act,” introduced by House of Representatives member Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) The act, if passed, would supposedly solve a problem regarding the recordation of patents in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Currently, recording the owner of a […]
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17 May '13
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reissued its warning about fraudulent trademarking solicitations purporting to be official communications from the agency. The USPTO website now provides direct links to 13 examples of the non-USPTO solicitations about which the agency has received complaints within the past several months. As I previously highlighted on this blog, […]
