IntellectualProperty Articles
When you think about the most popular online media and streaming platforms, two names are sure to come to mind: YouTube and Twitch. YouTube boasts over one billion hours of video watched every day, and Twitch, which Amazon acquired for $970 million in 2014, boasts around ten million daily active users, with each of these users watching an average of 106 minutes per day. These viewership numbers are not possible without content creators, and these creators are facing an increasing number of legal challenges as their numbers grow.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), enacted in 1986 at the dawn of the personal computer revolution, has become a key tool for both prosecutors and civil litigators in pursuing breaches of employers’ computer systems. The CFAA can provide protection to employers who have had intellectual property taken by current or former employees for purposes other than that for which the employee is authorized to use the IP. Although the CFAA is subject to multiple interpretations from different judicial circuits, employers can properly use the Act to enhance their Intellectual Property protection if they are mindful of what constitutes a violation of the act.
Apparel companies use a variety of methods to protect the designs of their products. Often, trademark and trade dress registrations are used to protect the apparel design of a company’s product from duplication by third parties without permission. Recently, however, there has been a trend by courts toward limiting the scope of trademark and trade dress protection for apparel products.
“Street art” has grown more popular in recent years. Street art, or graffiti art, is unsanctioned art created in public locations, typically on the sides of public and private buildings. It is usually made without consent from the building owner.
Riddle me this—how can a company be liable for trademark infringement when the infringing material is invisible to a consumer? The answer—by using trademarked phrases in a company’s metatag.
In March 2017, the United States Supreme Court resolved a copyright dispute between two manufacturers of cheerleading uniforms. The case, Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc., focused on an unresolved question: to what extent, if any, does the utility of an article on which pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works are placed affect whether such works are copyrightable?
On June 19, 2017, the United States Supreme Court ruled in an 8-0 decision (Justice Neil Gorsuch not participating) that the disparagement clause of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause.
The United States and the European Union have strikingly similar laws regarding liability of online marketplaces for third-party content posted on their websites. Nonetheless, the approaches American courts and European courts take to address the issue, are drastically different. This extreme divergence is best illustrated by the American case, Tiffany v. eBay, and the French case, LVMH v. eBay.
Numerous conflicts exist between federal and state laws regarding the legality of medical marijuana use. One issue resulting from the conflict is a cannabis company’s inability to obtain trademark protection for its brands. Under federal trademark law, a trademark registration will only be granted in connection with goods and services lawfully regulated by commerce. Because marijuana, a Schedule 1 controlled substance, is illegal under federal law, marijuana and related paraphernalia are incapable of procuring trademark registration.
Over the past few years, E-readers, such as Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook, have become very popular. It is not hard to understand the increased popularity of this technology. An E-reader is able to store a library's worth of content and still be small enough to fit in a purse or briefcase. The software for many of these devices can also be downloaded onto an I-Pad or tablet, leading to an increased number of people reading digital books. Yet all this progress may have an unintended cost, namely the inability to lend a digital book.
What happens when a fictitious product name in a movie is the same as an actual trademark? The United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana addressed this issue of first impression in Fortres Grand Corp. v. Warner Bros. Entertainment.
If you’re looking to protect the design of your product, trade dress registration and a design patent are two sound options.