Plaintiff Photographic Illustrators Corp. (PIC) did beauty shots of lightbulbs for Osram Sylvania. The parties had a falling out and in 2006 entered into a settlement agreement. The agreement settled all past claims and set forth the terms of the parties’ future relationship. Relevant to the case, Sylvania had a broad license to use...
Read more →The opinion is sparse on the facts and the law, so we have to do some interpretation. But it’s worth some thought about how the court construed the scope of an implied copyright license. Defendant Kushner wrote software for plaintiff Vickerman Co. Their relationship ended, Vickerman Co. sued Kushner (the court doesn’t say why,...
Read more →In 1992, plaintiff Oleg Pogrebnoy began publishing a Russian language newspaper in New York titled in Cyrillic “KYPbEP,” which translates as “courier”; Pogrebnoy also later used the word “Kurier.” Pogrebnoy claimed ownership of the unregistered trademarks through a chain of transactions, starting with his own use in 1992, through five different companies (probably all...
Read more →You probably don’t need to be told this, but just in case you had any doubt: “dope!” is not “clear, unambiguous and unequivocal” acceptance of an offer as required under New York law. The court didn’t say it categorically, but I’m going out on a limb here and say no matter what the context,...
Read more →One of the reasons for creating a written contract is to force the parties to consider the scope of the relationship into which they are entering. In an oral or implied license, though, the parties probably haven’t really fully thought out what their relationship is going to be. Which makes implied contracts litigation fodder....
Read more →Sometimes you just can’t do better than the court in setting up a story: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season...
Read more →I haven’t seen a lot of material to blog about, so I’ve resorted to writing about a fairly ho-hum case, albeit a court of appeals decision, albeit an unpublished one. Unless you have a compulsion to read all work-made-for-hire decisions, or at least those involving software development, you can probably just move on. I...
Read more →The Flynt family, of HUSTLER fame, has been embroiled for years in several lawsuits over the ownership of the business and use of the HUSTLER mark. As you might expect for a business based on pornography, the corporate form was ever-changinga “morass” as described by the court—as the family tried to limit its liability,...
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