A ®ose By Any Other Name
A successful trademark can provide more than just brand recognition or notoriety. In fact, Forbes reports that the 10 most valuable trademarks have a collective worth of over $300 billion.…
Linking to the Past: Week of September 29
Fresh off Eliza’s and Prof. Sprigman’s discussion of sampling, LMFAO argues that “Every day I’m shufflin’” constitutes fair use of Rick Ross’ “Every day I’m hustlin’.” Good luck trademarking McAnything.…
Restructuring the Federal Circuit
The de facto steward of U.S. patent law is the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the exclusive appellate venue for patent cases. As the…
3-D Printing Your Way down the Garden Path: 3-D Printers, the Copyrightization of Patents, and a Method for Manufacturers to Avoid the Entertainment Industry’s Fate
What happens when a home user can scan and print a physical item, or download plans to print a physical item from the Internet, as easily as he or she…
Bridging the Gap: Improving Intellectual Property Protection for the Look and Feel of Websites
Every company strives for a unique and memorable website. There is a growing threat, however, that this valuable investment in website design will be copied by competitors without effective legal…
License and Registration, Please: Using Copyright “Conditions” to Protect Free/Open Source Software
FOSS (free/open source software) is a growing player in the end-user market, as evidenced by the popularity of everything from Wordpress to Firefox. One of its key appeals to developers…
Where the Trade Secret Sits: How the Economic Espionage Act Is Inflaming Tensions in the Employment Relationship, and How Smart Employers and Employees Are Responding
The dawning of the information age, coupled with a greater understanding of the value of intellectual property, has increased the quantity of proprietary information businesses choose to keep as trade…
Using Copyright to Combat Revenge Porn
The dawning of the information age, coupled with a greater understanding of the value of intellectual property, has increased the quantity of proprietary information businesses choose to keep as trade…
Employer-Employee Relationship? Finding An Easier Way To Compensate Collegiate Athletes For Their Injuries
Concussion lawsuits have become an increasingly hot topic over the past decade as we’ve learned more about the long-term dangers concussions can pose to the human brain. While NFL concussion…
Timing of incentives in crowdfunding
Patents, prizes, government grants, and R&D tax incentives are ways to reward and incentivize innovation. One of the ways in which these schemes differ is the timing of the reward.…