10 Apr 2017
Intellectual property law is notoriously complicated, so it’s no wonder that the defining issues can be confusing. Intellectual property, in general, refers to ownership of goods that are intangible or that can’t be held – creations of the mind – and are, therefore, harder to protect. Once you understand the basic distinctions between copyrights,...
12 Aug 2014
USING TRADEMARKS TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS As mentioned in an earlier post, a trademark is a recognizable symbol, figure, slogan, or mark that is used by manufacturers or entrepreneurs to distinguish their product from competitor’s products. Trademark protection ensures that only the owner of the mark can use the trademark with the designated goods or...
11 Aug 2014
What Intellectual Property Protection Makes Sense for your Business or Venture? When businesses, entrepreneurs, or individual inventors approach us with their ideas, the first question we seek to answer is whether the idea is one that can be protected. Protection may best be served by procurement of one or more patents, trademarks, or copyrights. Additionally,...
20 Jan 2014
Last year, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a trademark case that in essence had nothing to do with trademarks. The original battle at the lower court was over a line of shoes and trademark owned by Nike called Air Force 1s, which another company, Already, claimed was an invalid trademark. Already designs...
27 Nov 2013
Back in July of 2012, a jury returned a powerful verdict against Samsung, in a suit filed by Apple (AAPL), claiming Samsung infringed on several patents, and diluted Apple’s trade dress for the iPhone. That jury found that 26 Samsung smartphones and tablets infringed Apple patents and that six Samsung smartphones diluted Apple’s registered iPhone...
12 Sep 2013
What do UPS, Tiffany, and 3M have in common? Chocolate brown trucks, robins-egg blue colored jewelry boxes, and canary yellow sticky notes. Chocolate brown, robins-egg blue, and canary yellow. Color, color, color is the answer of course! These are the distinctive colors that these prominent companies use to identify themselves. It may be more apt...
10 Jul 2013
Counterfeiting conjures a rather specific image whenever it is brought up in conversation. Most would imagine some thugs hiding out in a dark basement where a heavy machine consistently prints out reams and reams of fake money. While this is the most notable example of counterfeiting, it is hardly the only example; intellectual property has...
2 Jul 2013
Frank Zappa is a legend in the history of contemporary music. In the 27 years before his death in 1993, he released a mind-boggling 62 studio albums, just over two a year every year. These albums included the critically acclaimed Freak Out, which can lay claim to being both the first concept album and one...
20 Jun 2013
A design patent is a type of patent made on the aesthetic appearance of an object as opposed to a patent on its function. An engine, for example, has a specific purpose or function and this function could be protected by the standard and well known utility patent but the way the engine is designed...
7 Jan 2012
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that defendant’s request for an injunction on a theory of trademark infringement under 15 U.S.C.S. § 1114(1) was barred by laches. Tillamook Country Smoker v. Tillamook County Creamery Association, Case No. 04-35843 (9th cir., Oct. 11, 2006). Defendant Tillamook County Creamery...