Property, intangible

Exclusive Rights blogged on a recent decision from the 11th Circuit. It involves the “Rooker-Feldman” doctrine on the availability of review of state court decisions by a federal court. I promptly mentally filed the decision in the category of “I’ll look it up if I ever need it,” but the brief summary of facts by… Continue reading

One thing lawyers are good at is exploiting weaknesses. A recently-filed case in Delaware used an incorrect admission in an unrelated case as grounds for a motion to dismiss, claiming that the admission demonstrated that the plaintiff was not the actual owner of the patent. The defendant’s motion was ultimately unsuccessful, but a lot time… Continue reading

A previous post looked at a contract that was silent on trademark ownership and licensing, leaving the court to sort out who owned the trademark in dispute. A similar problem, a contract silent on the trademark, was decided in the Northern District of Indiana on the same day. This time, it was decided in the… Continue reading

The IPKat gives us an interesting story of a failed joint authorship theory for a children’s book. The German court held that the illustrations were not a joint work of authorship with the literary work and characters because there was a lack of sufficient interaction between the illustrations and the plot of the story. It’s… Continue reading

Two opinions issuing on the same day, one in Connecticut and one in Indiana, are parallel situations. In both cases, there was a contractual relationship that fell apart. The relationships had a trademark aspect to them, but the contracts never addressed the use or ownership of the trademarks directly, leaving the courts to sort it… Continue reading

There have been a few news reports of a suit between the University of Missouri and Galen J. Suppes, a professor of chemical engineering, and William R. Sutterlin, a former graduate teaching assistant and post-doctoral fellow. The university has a broad contractual claim to ownership of patents for inventions created by its employees, including those… Continue reading

Awhile back I blogged on a TTAB opposition and cancellation between the Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. and Ballet Tech Foundation, Inc. The proceeding involved a dispute over who owns the mark JOYCE, the foundation that purchased and renovated a theater named JOYCE or the foundation that ran the facility. The TTAB held that the foundation… Continue reading

Patent inventorship is defined by law, but there’s more than one way to get rewarded for it. Unjust enrichment, for example. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary v. QLT Phototherapeutics, Inc. is a tale of business misrepresentations and underhanded dealing, described by the court as “manifest unfairness” and “unscrupulous.” Of particular interest here is the maneuvering… Continue reading

Of the four types of intangible property typically characterized as “intellectual property,” that is, patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret, only one, the patent, is a true grant of rights from the government. If the government says you don’t have it, you don’t have it. Which brings me to a sorry tale of oversights and… Continue reading

Agreements that assign employees’ inventions to the employer are commonplace. O’Keefe v. County of St. Clair demonstrates why. Plaintiff John O’Keefe was an at-will Landfill/Resource Recovery Manager for the county landfill. Co-defendant CTI and Associates was a contractor at the landfill, working with O’Keefe on operations and landfill design. O’Keefe and the president of CTI… Continue reading