The Supreme Court recently reviewed Matal, Interim Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Tam (Matal v. Tam), which deals with trademark laws and what can be trademarked. In fact, before the case reached the Supreme Court, we have previously discussed how much is unsettled in this area of…
The United States Supreme Court came out with a new patent law decision in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. For those who are not familiar with patents, a patent grants the holder an exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, importing, and selling the patented innovation for a limited time.…
For example, you have a lawsuit against another party for infringing on your personal rights of privacy. The other party takes a photograph they had taken of you, and then licenses it to other individuals without your consent. Those individuals use it as a basis for a character in another…
In theory, a moderator is a sound idea for any individual running a website that allows user interaction. Presumably, moderators can filter out comments and content that is disreputable, disrespectful, and patently offensive. The moderator can keep discourse civil and help foster insightful positions. Perhaps the website can even rely…
From the idea of product design, who wouldn’t want to protect more of their products? A producer should be able to profit off the sweat of labor, and creativity that they have mustered to bring the product. Yet, if a design brings utility, then the individual that comes up with…
Among the rights people have, many are unknown or unsung until there is a dispute and the courts get involved in the process. Rarely recognized is the right to reverse engineer under the Fair Use Doctrine and Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, this is not an absolute right. Rather, it…
For the uninitiated, motion sensors work on either the idea of cameras capturing motions, infrared light waves, or gyroscopes. Yet, even with this simple trio, this subject has led to a large scale of lawsuits based on patent violations. There are two major lawsuits to look at, one in the…
In general, December is the month that yields a high volume of consumer activity, and the purchase of new technology devices. One of these is Virtual Reality (“VR”) technology, slowly trickling down from a niche market. However, it is not the only new reality-altering technology coming into the market, as…
In continuing our comments regarding copyrights online, we are on to fair use and liability for litigation. A dancing baby has created one of the most obscure and interesting cases for the year. The ramifications of this lawsuit could further impact the way that some copyright disputes could play out,…
Copyright is a legal right that keeps intellectual property safe, and allows individuals to profit from their efforts. Yet, these copyrighted works will at some point head over to the public domain after their expiration, which means they are not protected anymore. What if it did not expire? In fact,…