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25 Jun '14
TRADEMARKS ARE NOT ONLY LIMITED TO NAMES Trademark protection may cover logos, slogans, taglines, designs, sounds, jingles, colors, characters or fragrances. The law defines a mark as “any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination” that is used to identify and distinguish goods or services from those of others. Examples include: AOL’s “You Got Mail”; Microsoft Windows […]
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The Ninth Circuit has revived a case involving copyrights and trademarks associated with the late Bill Graham. Graham was born in Berlin and escaped Germany and France during World War II and lived as a foster child in the Bronx. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1960s and got his start as a […]
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IMAX Corporation claims that one of its former software engineers stole the company’s technology and has used it to help a lower-cost Chinese giant-screen rival. According court documents, Gary Tsui worked for IMAX in Mississauga, Ontario from 1999 to 2009. When he told his employer that he intended to quit, he was fired first when […]
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20 Jun '14
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee When President Obama last year announced a handful of executive actions to build a better patent system, one of those actions focused on improving clarity in patent claims. The president recognized that patents with clearly defined […]
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Adidas AG has sued Under Armour Inc. in Delaware federal court, claiming that Under Armour infringed 10 Adidas patents for a “location aware” fitness training system. The patents at issue were issued between 2007 and 2013 and include one for a “method of monitoring an individual’s performance during a physical activity with a portable performance […]
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In the alleged theft of trade secrets by individuals linked to companies funded by the Chinese government, an expert witness has testified that DuPont’s process for making titanium dioxide by chlorination was a closely guarded trade secret. Two men were convicted in federal court in California for trade secret theft. Robert Maegerle is a former […]
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17 Jun '14
Deputy Director Lee blogged about the status of the USPTO’s operating reserves. “I want to tell you more about our proposal to reduce total trademark fee collections. The reduction is possible due to efficiencies that have allowed the office to create an operating reserve. The proposed reduction maintains a reserve sufficient to manage operations and […]
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16 Jun '14
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Bloomberg’s unauthorized publication of a recording of an earnings call was fair use under US copyright law. In February of 2011, Swatch hosted a telephone conference and invited hundreds of securities analysts to discuss the company’s financial performance. Swatch arranged with a third party transcript service […]
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13 Jun '14
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. has filed copyright and trademark counterclaims against the producers of a Twilight parody film. The Twilight movie series, based on the hyper-popular novels by Stephanie Meyer, was produced by Lions Gate subsidiary Summit Entertainment and has earned over $3.3 billion worldwide. Between the Lines Productions LLC, producers of the spoof film […]
