The Washington Redskins NFL team has been fighting for years to maintain its registered trademarks containing the term REDSKINS. Its on and off again fight has been hotly debated in public, press and the courts. Finally, the United States Supreme Court has weighed in. Funny enough, the case before them was not that of the Redskins but […]
All posts by: Adam Garson
Is Google Guilty of “Genericide”?
June 9, 2017
Intellectual Property, Trademark
Is Google Guilty of “Genericide”? Mr. Chris Gillespie must have thought he had a brilliant idea when he registered multiple domain names that included the term “Google,” such as “googledisney.com,” “googleBarackObama.net,” “Googlenewtvs.com” and others. Did he truly believe that Google would not sue him? Or was this part of a grander scheme? Think about the […]
Can State Governments Own Rights in Copyright?
May 12, 2017
Copyright
I was browsing through my copy of the “Copyright Law of the United States,” which I purchased from the Government Printing Office some years ago. I noticed that inside the opening pages where you would normally find a copyright notice, the page contained a quote from the United States Constitution: The Congress shall have Power… […]
Late Breaking News: Ghostbusters Prevails Over Day of the Dead After Initial Defeat If you’re a vodka connoisseur, you probably know that Dan Aykroyd of Saturday Night Live, the Blues Brothers, and Ghostbusters fame partnered with another artist and Globefill, Inc. to manufacture and market vodka packaged in a skull shaped bottle and labeled as Crystal […]
Trademark owners have a duty to defend their trademarks against possible and actual infringement. Ignore infringers and your trademark rights may evaporate. Defending trademarks, however, is a full time job and not for the weak of heart (or wallet). The beverage industry is a breeding ground of intellectual property disputes and trademark owners aggressively defend […]
Amazon Gets More Serious About Infringers
February 9, 2017
Copyright, Intellectual Property, Trademark
If you sell branded products on Amazon.com, you may know that infringement is rampant. You put up a product, it gets popular, and all of a sudden, like a many-headed hydra, other sites spring up selling “your” product at reduced prices. Getting Amazon to remove infringing products can be a challenge even for IP lawyers […]
Common-Law Copyright Redux
January 5, 2017
Copyright
Two years ago we wrote about Floe & Eddie, Inc.’s, attempt to obtain royalties from SiriusXM for performances of the Turtle’s pre-February 1972 sound recordings. Floe & Eddie filed claims in California, New York, and Florida seeking to obtain royalties for performances of their recordings under state common law. You may recall that for pre-February 1972 sound […]
The Liberation of “We Shall Overcome”
December 15, 2016
Copyright
It’s crazy that a standard tune such as “Happy Birthday” sung by millions worldwide in a multitude of languages could actually be claimed “private property” subject to copyright protection. Now we learn that another famous song, “We Shall Overcome” is also subject to a copyright dispute. The New York Times has reported extensively on the […]
The Trademark Adventures of Buck Rogers
November 15, 2016
Trademark
The Buck Rogers comic strip and its many spin-off novellas, films, television series, and toys introduced Americans to the dream and adventure of space travel. Legal conflicts over possession of the rights to Buck Rogers have been more mundane but just as long lived. The comic strip, which debuted in 1929, was developed by Philip Francis […]
99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, 99 Bottles of Beer
September 24, 2016
Trademark
IP lawyers like beer, at least this one does. So, we also like to write about beer trademarks. Here’s one you can drink to. The Irish Times recently reported that the city of Munich has filed a new European Union trademark application for OKTOBERFEST, hoping, we assume, to profit from licensing the name to the countless […]