Pamela Chestek
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Attention Sharks
I like to watch Shark Tank. If you haven’t seen it, entrepreneurs come pitch a panel of notable business people asking for an investment in their nascent companies. Often the topic of intangible assets—generally patents and trademarks—comes up, which presumably the sharks are taking into account when valuing a company. The entrepreneurs make representations about… Continue reading
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No, It Doesn’t
I previously asked whether the below check transferred copyright ownership: It doesn’t, at least not on a motion for summary judgment. If you can’t read it, on the memo line the check says “For rights to song ‘Dos Horas De Vida.” The check was written by defendant Hacienda Records to Jose Guzman, the songwriter of… Continue reading
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Today’s Quiz
Does this check transfer copyright ownership? If you can’t see the image, the check (which was cashed) is for $75.00 and on the memo line says “For rights to song ‘Dos Horas De Vida.” What do you think? Leave your comments below. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative… Continue reading
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Challenging the Sublicense to Your License
Hang in with me, we have a bit of a licensing chain to follow here. The lawsuit is about whether a Russian performer, Sergey Lazarev, had a license to record and perform the song “Almost Sorry”: The song was written by Taryn Murphy and Chris Landon. They pitched Lazarev’s manager in 2006 and we have… Continue reading
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Consideration Can Be a Failed Expectancy
I’ve written about MemoryLink Corp. v. Motorola Solutions, Inc. in the past (recursive link). Peter Strandwitz and Bob Kniskern, owners of plaintiff Memorylink, had collaborated with defendant Motorola Solutions on the development of a handheld camera that could wirelessly transmit and receive video signals. Standwitz and Kniskern trusted Motorola Solutions with filing patent applications on… Continue reading
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Contracts 101
Patent law heavily involves interpretation of language. In addition to the construction of the claims themselves, it has an almost unintelligible set of rules for distinguishing licenses from assignments and special rules for the language one must use to assign a patent. But in Fort. v. Innegra Technologies, LLC, we have a more interesting situation,… Continue reading
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Not His First Time at the Rodeo
In 1992, plaintiff Oleg Pogrebnoy began publishing a Russian language newspaper in New York titled in Cyrillic “KYPbEP,” which translates as “courier”; Pogrebnoy also later used the word “Kurier.” Pogrebnoy claimed ownership of the unregistered trademarks through a chain of transactions, starting with his own use in 1992, through five different companies (probably all companies… Continue reading
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