Property, intangible

The NFL Players Association, through National Football League Players Inc., is a nonexclusive licensing entity for NFL players’ rights of publicity. CBS Interactive, which runs the web site CBSSports.com, did not believe that it needed a license to use player names and statistics for its fantasy football site, but, according to CBS Interactive, the NFLPA… Continue reading

Thanks to everyone who responded on the ice cream survey. I had 207 responses, 200 US and 7 foreign. I’ll be posting the results in the next day or two. © 2008 Pamela Chestek Continue reading

I read a case recently that made me wonder whether my personal reaction about the genericism of a phrase was right or wrong, so I decided I’d see what others think. I prepared a Teflon-type survey on SurveyMonkey for you to take; send your friends to take it too. It should take you no more… Continue reading

You may have seen that there’s some dispute in the Mattel v. MGA case over the amount of the verdict. Mattel claims it’s $100 million and MGA claims it’s either $20 million or $40 million, saying some of the awards in the verdict form are duplicative. I put the verdict form here, so you can… Continue reading

The Law Vegas Trademark Attorney gives us background on a newly-filed dispute over the mark HEAVY HITTER(S). It’s an interesting situation – it looks like an advertising agency registered the mark HEAVY HITTER (although the certificate says HEAVY HITTERS) for legal services and relied on licensees’ use to support its registration. Glen Lerner, of Law… Continue reading

There’s an interesting NYT article that attributes the resurgence of revived brands (blogged here) to tougher economic times – it’s cheaper to revive than build from scratch. © 2008 Pamela Chestek Continue reading

The name “Aerotel” is fairly well known in the UK, at least among software companies. The UK doctrine on patentability of business methods and software is known as Aerotel/Macrossan, after the pair of cases decided in Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holding Ltd and others, and Neal William Macrossan’s application [2006] EWCA 1371 (Civ) (2006-10-27). The… Continue reading

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 from… Continue reading

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 the… Continue reading

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?” Continue reading