In transactional work, don’t think just about what you’re getting, but also what you don’t want the target to do in the future. Three family members with the surname Traeger had a business in wood pellet grills. They sold the business to plaintiff Traeger Pellet Grills. At least one of the Traeger family later...
Read more →Plaintiff Tegu is a toy company. It hired defendant Vestal Design Atelier LLC to develop its first toy line. Vestal created prototypes for Tegu for blocks with embedded magnets. These are the relevant provisions on ownership of the intellectual property rights in the agreement: 2.0 Ownership of Intellectual Property. 1. Ownership. Intellectual property rights...
Read more →You’ve all seen this language before. This is from an agreement to transfer rights to a formula for nutritional products in exchange for royalties: If you can’t read the image, it says In consideration of the sum of $1.00 payable by Synergy to HealthBanc upon execution of this Agreement, HealthBanc hereby transfers and assigns...
Read more →Apparently someone is still interested in the Amiga operating system. In 2009, non-party Amiga, Inc. and defendant Hyperion Entertainment C.V.B.A. entered into a settlement agreement that resolved a number of lawsuits between them. The plaintiff, Cloanto Corp., was a licensee of Amiga at the time of the settlement agreement and mentioned in the agreement...
Read more →I asked who owns the RESTORADERM trademark? When I read the facts in the Third Circuit opinion I thought it was a no-brainer. But apparently I was wrong, because the district court came out one way and the appeals court the other. Sköld won in the trial court. Galderma moved for summary judgment on...
Read more →The opening sentence: “This case proves once again that people will fight for a catchy name.” My kind of case. Plaintiff Thomas Sköld coined the name “Restoraderm” for a proprietary skin care formulation. (When the court uses the word “coined,” you know it has grasped the difference between a word and a trademark.) In...
Read more →Six years into the case, we’re on to the third decision on ownership in the case of Roberts v. Gordy and have yet to reach the question of infringement. In the first opinion, the district court held that, although there were three registrations for the infringed work, none was effective and so the court...
Read more →We have a story of three firearm and ammunition companies. The parties in the case are DoubleTap Defense, LLC (DTD), a company that had an application to register the trademark DOUBLETAP for pistols, and Hornady Manufacturing Co., owner of several TAP-formative registrations for ammunition. The third company, not a party, is Double Tap Ammunition...
Read more →The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns the site on which the World Trade Center in New York sits. The original two towers complex was completed in 1973 and included the “Top of the World” observation deck and gift shops, which were operated under a lease with the Port Authority. As...
Read more →In my last post I posed questions about the validity of two registrations. If you guessed that both registrations were valid, you were right. The first application was filed and assigned at a time when the entity had been administratively dissolved. DC Bocce claimed that the non-profit still had the capacity to sue and...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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