The verdict is in, but not without some confusion. Reuters reported a verdict for Mattel for $100 million, AP says $40 million. I suppose either way it’s a lot of money. Here’s the horse’s mouth, see for yourself. For all parties combined it could be $100,031,500, plus a little interest: $66,031,500 from MGA, $33,000,000...
Read more →The LA Times recently ran a story about whether some early “Steamboat Willie” cartoons are still protected by copyright. It’s not new news; in 2003, inspired by an internet article, Douglas Hedenkamp wrote a law review article on the subject and concluded they are not. But an entertaining article for both the gist of...
Read more →Reuters is reporting that the Mattel v. MGA Entertainment jurors asked “Can we find that the first generation dolls violate copyright but the second generation do not?”
Read more →An appropriate decision for football season; the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has affirmed, in an antitrust case, that the exclusive licensing of all professional football teams marks to one vendor is not a violation of the Sherman Act. NFL Properties is an unincorporated organization of 32 separately owned teams. Each team...
Read more →The area of “residual goodwill” seems to be a hot one lately. I posted recently on River West Brands and Chrysler LLC v. Pimpo, two “residual goodwill” situations, and the TTABlog recently posted on a third one involving the LaSalle trademark for automobiles. “Residual goodwill” describes the significance of a trademark when it is...
Read more →The IPKat has brought our attention to a spat between Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet, and that airline over its use of “easy” for more than just plain Jane “easyJet.” Seems Sir Stelios licenses the easyJet name to the airline through a licensing company called easyGroup IP Licensing, and finds that easyJet’s use...
Read more →Family relationships are frequent fodder for a blog about ownership of IP and also my favorite kind of case, because they are such tangled human stories. The contracts are also poor or nonexistent and the IP rights misunderstood if recognized at all, so trying to get to a fair outcome sometimes an interesting exercise....
Read more →In the past I could have just linked to William Patry’s blog for a case like this, but unfortunately no more. We’ll just have to soldier on and do our best to understand the intricacies of termination rights in copyright law without the benefit of his knowledge and insight. A recently published termination case,...
Read more →The 9th Circuit, brief and to the point: Petitioners’ motion to file portions of the emergency motion and the petition for writ of mandamus under seal is granted. The motion to exceed the page limitation on the petition is granted. The emergency motion for an order suspending trial is denied. Petitioners have not demonstrated...
Read more →A local segment from WBUR’s broadcast of this morning’s NPR show “Morning Edition” was about a dispute in Massachusetts over the rightful owner of Lizzie Borden’s history. The argument is in the form of a trademark lawsuit, where the owner of the “Lizzie Borden Museum” trademark (website here) filed a complaint for trademark infringement...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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