Pamela Chestek
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Wordiness Is Your Enemy
Lawyers are wordy. Often the wordiness doesn’t matter that much, “I hereby demand that you cease and desist” instead of “you must stop now” both get the point across. But never, ever write a contract that is wordy without a good reason, because that can put you into litigation hell. Defendant 4EverYoung, Ltd., a UK… Continue reading
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You Need to Decide Your Legal Theories Before Trial
According to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: The popular song Whoomp! (There It Is) was released in 1993. For more than half of the song’s existence—since 2002—the parties to this action have been litigating the question of who owns the composition copyright to the song. And at least part of the reason… Continue reading
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Why Litigation Is So Expensive
The USPTO has a number of different databases with information about trademarks—one for basic trademark registration data, searched by using the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), assignment records at Assignments on the Web (AOTW), and ex parte appeal, opposition and cancellation proceedings in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System (TTABVUE). Two older databases,… Continue reading
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The Effect of Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick
Section 411 of the Copyright Act says that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.” In Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, the Supreme Court held that § 411 is a “claim… Continue reading
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Assigned from One’s Self to One’s Self
The patent, copyright and trademark statutes are not paragons of clarity when it comes to assignment. They all require that assignments be in writing, which is fine as far as it goes. What seems to befuddle lawyers is what to do when the transfer is by operation of law. The Copyright Act acknowledges implicitly that… Continue reading
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Not Clever Enough Yet
Oh those patent trolls, cleverer and cleverer. To try to keep their cases in Texas, NPEs have rented empty office space in Texas and Continue reading
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Behind Every Movie is a Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Successful movies always seem to be accompanied by copyright infringement lawsuits, generally an optimistic author who believes his or her story was stolen and made into a movie. But in Gomba Music, Inc. v. Avant we have a very different twist, two different claimants to ownership of the copyright in music written by the subject… Continue reading
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Over Again for STOLI – But Just For Now
Federal Treasury Enterprise Sojuzplodoimport first sued Spirits International B.V. over the STOLICHNAYA trademark 10 years ago, in October, 2004. Two lawsuits later, FTE still hasn’t survived an examination of its standing. The case has been dismissed a second in the district court, but even the district court thinks that an appeal is warranted: “In the short… Continue reading
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When Trademark and Estate Don’t Mix
What a dispute. I’ve written before (recursive link) about the dispute over the ownership of the mark YOGI for at least tea. I say “at least” because what seems to be missing from the four (or more) lawsuits that involve the trademark is the concept that a trademark has something to do with goods and… Continue reading
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Having Documents Helps
I usually write about ownership issues in the context of infringement claims. But I ran across a tax case where management (or actually, lack of management) of the ownership of the intellectual property ended up creating a tax deficiency on 29.6 million dollars. In 1976 William and Patricia Cavallaro started a contract manufacturing company, Knight… Continue reading
About Me
Learn more about me at my website, Chestek Legal
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- copyright
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- moral rights
- patent
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- social media
- trade dress
- trade libel
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