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 […]
Blog – Adam Garson Law
China Embraces Patents in a Big Way
February 15, 2018
Patent
Fifteen years ago, China did not have much of a patent program. After all, with a centrally controlled economy and no private property, what good was a patent? Much of that has changed, at least the private property part. The Chinese government identified homegrown innovation and improving the ‘made in China’ brand as crucial to […]
Marijuana Madness
February 8, 2018
Trademark
Marijuana has become big business. We never thought it would happen but now 29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana and eight states have legalized pot for recreational use. But alas, federal law, still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act meaning that cannabis […]
Ask Dr. Copyright — Grumpy Cat
February 1, 2018
Ask Dr. Copyright
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 […]
Shocker at the USPTO
January 18, 2018
Patent, Trade Secrets
Many administrations regard the USPTO as a political backwater and the directorship as a holding pen for less-than-ideal candidates. Here’s the shocker: The Administration has appointed a qualified person to head the USPTO. His name is Andrei Iancu and he is currently the managing partner of a Los Angeles law firm. He’s a degreed engineer and registered […]
Emoji Madness
January 18, 2018
Internet Law
An Israeli landlord places an online ad for an apartment and obtains a response from an interested renter. According to reports, the renter wrote (original in Hebrew): Based upon several follow-up communications, the landlord removes his online advertisement. A few days later, the would-be renters disappear. What’s a landlord to do? He’s a businessman so […]
Ask Dr. Copyright – Emerging New PTO Standards
January 11, 2018
Ask Dr. Copyright, Trademark
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 at the […]
Another Reason that E-mail can be Dangerous
December 28, 2017
cybersecurity
Consider, hypothetically, that you are in the process of a nasty divorce. Using your company-owned laptop, you e-mail your divorce attorney about all of the times you cheated on your spouse, complete with action photos of each of your romantic soul mates and detailed descriptions of the unique talents of each one. Now your spouse’s […]
Smart Lady
December 21, 2017
Patent
Last week Zeitgeist Films released a biopic of Hedy Kiesler Markey, an inventor of U.S. Patent 2,292,387. This WWII patent envisioned that jumping between radio frequencies would avoid jamming of radio-guided torpedoes. The U.S. Navy rejected the frequency-hopping invention at the time and did not adopt the technology until much later. Frequency hopping is now widely […]
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 […]