Dear Doc: I’m an AMERICAN. I run an AMERICAN business. I sell red hats that say “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” I have an AMERICAN website. My customers are mostly proud AMERICANS. Now a bunch of FOREIGNERS from EUROPE are making rules about the information that I collect and the emails that I send. SAD! Can’t […]
All posts by: Lawrence Husick
On April 23, 2018, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Naruto, the monkey who took a selfie, lacked standing to bring a law suit in under the Copyright Act. “We must determine whether a monkey may sue humans, corporations, and companies for damages and injunctive relief arising from claims of copyright infringement. Our […]
Dear Doc: I’ve always heard that Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’till it’s over.” I’ve also heard (not to engage in body-image shaming) that, “It’s not over ’till the fat lady sings.” Now I hear that the copyright case between Oracle and Google, which I read was over (Oracle lost) is not over at […]
Dear Doc: The United States Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§101 et seq. – see, I can lawyer-speak!) was passed more than 40 years ago, in 1976. Back then, the Internet was the ARPANet, there was no World Wide Web, no twittering (except among groups of birds or young women, and no, we don’t say that […]
Dear Doc: I hear that although a monkey can’t own a copyright, a cat can be both a copyright and a trademark, and is worth a whole lot of money. What gives? Judges don’t like monkeys, but love kitties? What kind of law is that? Signed, Confused Cat Lover Dear CCL: Like anything in the […]
Dear Doc: Last I heard, “Slants”, a term some Asians apparently find offensive was deemed to be a registrable trademark by the United States Supreme Court because they think that free speech under the First Amendment protects all sorts of offensive speech (but not the giant Ten Commandments that was put up at […]
Dear Doc, I thought that you were Dr. Copyright. What’s with this new name? Signed, Madame Miriam Abacha (wife of late ruler Sonny Abacha of Lagos, Nigeria) Dear Madame: You may have heard that a large law firm in Bermuda, Appleby, had 13.4 million of its documents stolen by hackers and delivered to the German […]
In the recent argument before the US Supreme Court about gerrymandering, Gill v. Whitford, a mathematical formula was presented to the judges that requires adding together two numbers (“wasted” vote totals) and dividing the sum by a third number (the total number of votes cast.) This formula is called the “Efficiency Gap” and lawyers told the justices […]
Dear Doc: I’m an attorney, and like most other lawyers, I went to law school because just the thought of taking organic chemistry in college gave me the dry heaves. Now the state Supreme Court has added a new rule that all lawyers have to follow. That rule says, “To maintain the requisite knowledge and […]
Dear Doc: At times, you write about copyrights. At other times, you write about patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and other legal mumbo-jumbo. I’m confused. What’s all of that got to do with intellectual property? Signed, Inquiring Client Dear Inqy: Back in the dark ages, when the Doc passed the bar, things were pretty clear. […]