Property, intangible

Before Google acquired Android, Inc., and later released the Android operating system, Erich Specht had registered the mark ANDROID DATA. Specht claimed Google infringed his trademark; Google was successful in the trial court with a claim that Specht had abandoned the trademark, as I previously blogged. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit now… Continue reading

“Intellectual property” is a meaningless phrase when it comes to a description of legal rights. It it is catch-all term for at least three different types of intangible property: patent, trademark and copyright, and maybe boat hull designs, and maybe Indian tribal names, and maybe trade secrets, and maybe the right of publicity—you get the… Continue reading

Here are the musings of a bewildered district court judge trying to figure out the difference between a patent owner, an exclusive licensee, and a “de facto” patent owner. The patent owner, a professor named Morris, had exclusively licensed just about everything to plaintiff BRK and the court had to figure out if BRK had… Continue reading

There is a rash of lawsuits brought by photographic agencies against textbook publishers, claiming that the publishers underreported the number of copies of books that were published. The publishers are fighting back and there are two main grounds for attack—that the requirements for registration were not met and that the individual photographers’ assignments to the… Continue reading

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” William Goldman, The Princess Bride (1973). I’m starting a new category of posts, about agreements where their wording, upon examination by a court, didn’t manage to do what the parties probably had set out to do. First up we… Continue reading

The case is several months old, but still worth writing about: it’s a cogent explanation by a court of appeals about the scope of copyright registration for joint works. The case is complicated with many issues, but I’ll only relate the part of the story relevant to ownership and registration of copyright. In 1993, Tina… Continue reading

It’s not a hard concept—to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit you have to own a copyright. Nevertheless, getting that right seems to be a challenge sometimes. Today’s version of the challenge is ownership of the copyrights for works created by Earl Vernon Biss, Jr., who died in 1998 – here is his biography on one… Continue reading

Last Friday I Continue reading

I’m very interested in C.F.M. Distributing Co. v. Costantine, a case about a failed franchise and a son’s effort to revive it. The effort failed because there were so many former uncontrolled licensees that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board held (as affirmed by the Federal Circuit) that the applicant was not the owner of… Continue reading

Here’s a document—does it transfer copyright ownership? The court held on a motion for summary judgment that it was a question for the finder of fact. The same judge, in a bench trial, has now decided. Which way did it go? Add comments below. Updated 19 Feb. 14: Follow up post here. The text of… Continue reading