Property, intangible

Here’s the assignment history, you be the judge: 1960: IBM Japan enters into a patent assignment agreement with IBM World Trade. January 1, 1963: IBM acquires from IBM World Trade all patents IBM World Trade has or thereafter acquires. June 25, 1981: amendment to 1960 agreement in between IBM Japan and IBM World Trade, stating… Continue reading

There are a couple of recent cases with an ownership-based defense that one doesn’t see very often – the jus tertii defense. “Jus tertii” – Wikipedia says Latin for “third party rights” – is a claim by a defendant that someone else has rights superior to the plaintiff’s that defeat the plaintiff’s claim. It’s generally… Continue reading

Lawsuits about standing in patent cases are a dime a dozen: you can find some here. But this case has some really nice summary if you need to get a quick take on the legal standard. First, here are the possible standing iterations: Under Aspex Eyewear, a patent may not have multiple separate owners for… Continue reading

It can in Wisconsin. In Metso Minerals Industries, Inc. v. FLSmidth-Excel LLC, there was no question that the plaintiff, Metso, was only a licensee of the secret, not the owner. Two of the defendants were former employees of Metso and one of its licensees, but now are employees of the corporate defendant Excel. Metso accused… Continue reading

Yesterday there was a conference devoted to my favorite topic, Ownership and Control of IP Rights. What a shame it was on a different continent so I couldn’t attend. Luckily, the IPKat summarizes it here, here and here. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Continue reading

For me, Ralston v. Salba Corp. was one of those “whoops, keep an eye out for that next time” kind of cases. Note to self – in the future, check for a reversionary right in the property being licensed. Plaintiffs William and Richard Ralston and Great Western Tortilla Co., a company that had been owned… Continue reading

There’s an awesome dust up down in San Antonio over the ownership of the trademark THE ALAMO. You sort of think that ownership would be settled by now, but apparently not. An application to register the mark for “museum services, namely, exhibiting to the public a historical site” was filed by the Daughters of the… Continue reading

It’s a routine trademark infringement suit over both parties’ use of the mark VANTAGE. Plaintiff Vantage, Inc. is the owner of a pending application for VANTAGE, which has been opposed by the defendant Vantage Travel Service, Inc., the opposition now stayed. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on a § 43(a) claim, a state… Continue reading

The wait is over – we have the Official Announcement from the TTABlog for this year’s Meet the Bloggers (VI, for those keeping count), although we are still anxiously awaiting the moniker assigned this year by the Trademark Blog (back story here). Yours truly has the honor of co-hosting this year, still riding the coattails… Continue reading

American Plastic Equipment, Inc. claimed to own the copyright in toy action figures first manufactured by Louis Marx & Co. Defendant Toytrackerz, LLC made replicas and was sued. In its original decision (blogged here and here), the court found that there were two defects in American Plastic’s chain of title. The first break was in… Continue reading