Such a short decision, and so many things to think about. We last visited Vergara Hermosilla v. The Coca-Cola Company after a motion for preliminary injunction had been granted in Vergara’s favor. Vergara did a Spanish translation of lyrics for a video for Coca-Cola, but there was a misunderstanding and/or screw up which meant...
Read more →Ashley Gasper has several hats. He is an adult film star using the stage name Jules Jordan. (Not what you think, it’s a USPTO link. Click away.) He is the president and sole shareholder of Jules Jordan Video, Inc. (innocent too – Wikipedia), the creator of the videos in which Gasper stars. He...
Read more →Vergara Hermosilla v. The Coca-Cola Company demonstrates that probably the most significant role of a contract is to make sure that everyone is on the same page. But business happens fast, so the writings aren’t always in place as fast as they should be. Here, Coca-Cola was whacked with a preliminary injunction all because...
Read more →Yesterday there was a conference devoted to my favorite topic, Ownership and Control of IP Rights. What a shame it was on a different continent so I couldn’t attend. Luckily, the IPKat summarizes it here, here and here. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Read more →The Exclusive Rights blog reports on a case from the Supreme Court of Indiana, where one company hired another to design and host its web site. An often-told story; the hiring company stopped paying the bills and the designing company shut down the web site, then sued on the bill. In response, the defendant...
Read more →Dilbert has been running a series for all of you who aspire to be you own boss but on company time, a lesson that Carter Bryant has learned. Sorry about the formatting, but click on the strip to see the full image: © 2009 Pamela Chestek
Read more →Malibu Textiles, Inc. v. Carol Anderson, Inc. is a good demonstration of the confusion that, almost 20 years after CCNV, still surrounds whether a work is a “work made for hire.” In Malibu, designs for lace were created by an independent party but Malibu filed copyright applications for the lace designs listing ownership as...
Read more →The Los Angeles Intellectual Property Trademark Attorney Blog reports here that there is an ownership dispute over the music in a 1987 live-action version of Snow White. The blog reports: MGM asserts that defendant, Arik Rudich, is an individual now residing in Israel, who composed certain music and/or songs included in the picture, which...
Read more →I’m a little late to the game, but I just got around to reading Robert Brauneis’ “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song,” available here, blogged here, here, and here. It’s an interesting and thorough investigation into whether “Happy Birthday” is still protected by copyright. The telling of the story covers initial ownership of...
Read more →It turns out that the success of Trailer Trash Barbie was indeed the fact that it was a Barbie. After Paul Montwillo (doing business under the name Paul Hansen) and his business partner, William Tull, settled a lawsuit Mattel brought in 1997 against them for their sale of Barbie dolls turned into “Trailer Trash...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
© 2013 Pamela S. Chestek. All rights reserved.