Property, intangible

From the caption you can guess the story in MacKenzie-Childs, Ltd. v. Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs: Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs started a business, didn’t have the business anymore, and then there was a dispute over who owned the name. The MacKenzie-Childs story is a little different from Joseph Abboud but still comes out the same.… Continue reading

Neil Wilkof at the IP Finance blog has a great post on due diligence on IP ownership. The post walks through the various ways that IP rights can be acquired and transferred, as well as modalities of default rules in different countries. Definitely something to keep in the file drawer, if not stuck on the… Continue reading

It’s off-topic, but I encourage everyone to go take a look atopensource.com, a web site launched today by my employer, Red Hat. It’s a place to talk about open source and the power of working openly and collaboratively. Come join the conversation. Continue reading

Law.com is reporting that Conan O’Brien will have to give up the intellectual property rights in the characters and recurring skits that he developed during his NBC career. It’s not all entirely clear who owns what and who’s giving up what. The New York Times reports NBC claims to be co-owner of Triumph the Insult… Continue reading

Last Sunday’s New York Times published an article about copyright ownership of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes character. The article is largely about the dispute between different parties who lay claim to the US copyright in the Sherlock Holmes stories. The general reaction is surprise that Sherlock Holmes can still be under copyright, but… Continue reading

Both plaintiff and defendant sell ball bearings using the same four-digit codes. The codes provide information on the characteristics of the bearings. But this isn’t a copyright case about the numbering system, it’s a claim that the series numbers are trademarks. The plaintiff, RBC Nice Bearings Inc., f/k/a Nice Ball Bearing Co. (“Nice”), started selling… Continue reading

In catching up on my reading over the holidays, I ran across three separate opinions where the licensee estoppel defense was raised (score: trademark owner 2, licensee 1). I don’t recall the last time I read another opinion on licensee estoppel. Is it a sign of these economic times? Are licensors looking for more income?… Continue reading

I’ve previously written about the deathly ill POLAROID brand. In a compilation of the Twelve Most Tarnished Brands, Technologizer ranks it number 1: But if Polaroid can fall this far, no name is sacred. Apple and Google, take heed–and give thought to where you might wind up come 2060 or so if you aren’t careful.… Continue reading

In Act One of Third Education Group, Inc. v. Phelps, we had Richard Phelps versus Bruce Thompson, an informal partnership that turned sour. In the first decision, the court held that the registration for the mark they were both using, Third Education Group, was void because it was filed in the name of Richard Phelps… Continue reading

The TTABlog reports on a decision invoking In re Wella to try to escape a likelihood of confusion refusal. In re Wella is a 1986 Federal Circuit decision which held that corporate family members (in that case, parent and subsidiary) may own substantially similar marks without a likelihood of confusion so long as there is… Continue reading