Property, intangible

In a contest that requires a creative contribution, the contest sponsor will generally require that the participant assign the copyright in the contributed work. LittleMismatched did no differently, but it ran into some trouble because its target demographic is young girls. Mix children and contract and it gets a little trickier. The plaintiff, I.C., was… Continue reading

The U.S. government has been in a multi-year, multi-indictment quest to acquire the trademarks of the Mongols motorcycle club. You can find the whole complicated background here, but the short version is that, because of improper assignments, the government indicted the wrong party the first time around. So the government is back, this time indicting… Continue reading

The court: Exploiting the patent-in-suit in these cases, U.S. Patent No. 5,781,788 (the ‘788 patent), was AVT’s sole reason for being. The only precondition to Plaintiff’s fulfilling its singular purpose was its acquisition of title to the ‘788 patent. Obtaining ownership of the patent was AVT’s sine qua non, the only thing Plaintiff absolutely had… Continue reading

Update: The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed that the hospital was the owner of the trademarks. Greene conceded that the Massachusetts General Hospital IP Policy was broad enough to cover the trademarks he adopted and used for a program associated with MGH. The court rejected his contract defenses of equitable estoppel, failure… Continue reading

Update: The Court of Appeals for the First Sixth Circuit affirmed the lower court decision that there was an implied assignment of the trademark. The defendant challenged the decision on two bases. First, without using the word “abandoned,” the defendant argued that the trademark rights were lost when Taylor ceased business. But the owner of… Continue reading

One of the issues I often write about is what entity, exactly, owns a trademark. As described by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, “feuding members of extended family businesses, aging pop bands, or religious organizations riven by theological schisms” are frequent litigants because trademarks can be adopted with great informality and no documentation. Sometimes… Continue reading

The Copyright Act allows for the termination of any copyright grants given. There are different statutory provisions for it* depending on the date of the original grant (before or after January 1, 1978), whether the author is still alive, and with somewhat different conditions for termination, but they can all be terminated. When the author… Continue reading

The Lanham Act provides a federal cause of action for trademark registration and infringement, including for infringement of unregistered (so-called “common law”) trademarks. It is well-accepted, though, that the Lanham Act doesn’t preempt state law on the subject; all states* have laws providing for registration at the state level and an infringement cause of action.… Continue reading

To quote the World Trademark Review: It is foolish in the extreme to ever underestimate the power of a passionate online community; if you do, what may seem like a minor blip in your trademark strategy could turn into a formidable obstacle should you come up against a cleverly-orchestrated and very determined campaign. I’m very… Continue reading

There are a slew of lawsuits against textbook publishers alleging use of stock photography beyond the scope of the original license (recursive link). Whether one characterizes it as massive intentional infringement, or a simple failure of the publishers to track their use and true-up on their licenses, it looks like it is a pervasive practice… Continue reading