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College football in Alabama, as demonstrated by the recent national titles by Auburn University and the University of Alabama, is a big deal. One painter's efforts to cash in on this popularity brought a long-lasting lawsuit from the latter...
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This article points out that statutory damages for copyright infringement are not the free ride many would-be litigants like to conceive of them as. The primary reason, according to the article, has to do with personal notions of fairness; in...
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This article looks at some of the brand protection measures being taken on behalf of the organizers of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The article points out why some of these protective measures amount to over-enforcement and notes that...
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Google-owned YouTube has presented a number of thorny copyright problems since its inception (and one high-profile copyright infringement judicial opinion has resulted from litigation in which the service was a defendant). This article looks at...
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This article provides an illustration of how a trademark search is conducted by trying to find registered trademarks associated with Bates numbering. After explaining what Bates numbering is (it's near and dear to litigators' hearts), the...
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Even Google has struggles with branding. That point is made by this article, which looks first at the ill-fated 2010 launch of Google Buzz. It notes that this product was quickly consigned to the failure bin. Then, the article...
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This article looks at a trademark dispute which was being contested on heavily technical procedural grounds. The doctrines in question centered around various rules of civil procedure (such as standing and joinder); this article highlights what...
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This article continues reviewing topics which were discussed at the INTA 2012 conference by looking at a panel on search engine optimization. The article points to a seeming imbalance on the panel which resulted in an obfuscation of the...
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This article decries certain questionable practices in intellectual property litigation involving the calculation and awarding of damages. The article notes a $100 million dollar default judgment in a recent lawsuit and points out that these...
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This article points to a newly-released variant of the popular internet browser Firefox which claims to allow anonymous internet browsing and notes that certain types of legal practices are benefitted by tools which allow anonymous access...
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A recent presentation at a prominent conference related to trademark rights and keyword advertising. This article is part of a series of reaction pieces on the conference in general and that presentation in particular. The article...
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Although creating a product which becomes so synonymous with a product or service that it ends up in the dictionary often means that said product or service became wildly successful, this article points out that such an occurrence is a nightmare for...
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The introduction of generic top-level domain names ("gTLDs") brought a great deal of speculation from both internet experts and brand protection advocates about how businesses would use this new tool. This article looks at an analysis of how...
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This article succinctly points out that cease and desist letters, although easy to write and cheap to send, should be given more thought prior to dispatching. Cease and desist letters have a great deal of shortcomings, according to the article,...
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If you live in New York City and are a regular straphanger, there's a very good chance you've at least glimpsed Cole Haan's "Subway Stories" ad campaign (whether or not you remember it vividly). This article looks at Cole Haan's campaign from...
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This article reviews an appellate court's opinion regarding a number of trademark-related claims made by Rosetta Stone against Google, focusing on an analysis of the court's reasoning for both upholding certain Google victories in the lower...
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This article reviews an important decision in a trademark litigation appeal by a very influential court (the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes in its jurisdiction cases filed in New York). The appeal in question focused on two...
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This article concerns a trademark dispute over a 40+ year-old drawing of a banana; appropriately enough, it also contains 100% of your daily dose of old fruit puns. The subject of the dispute in question is Andy Warhol's cover of the Velvet...
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This article is inspired by a report that Trayvon Martin's parents filed trademark registrations over phrases connected with the slain teen in an effort to, among other things, "control his name." The article notes that, in spite of the tragedy...
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What happens when you stop using a trademark? If you're a small business, the trademark likely will merely be scantily remembered. But what about when Pepsi stops using a trademark? This article examines and explains what happens in...
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Litigation over intellectual property associated with Betty Boop recently threatened to upset the brand licensing industry. Although a revised Ninth Circuit opinion meant that such a threat was (narrowly) dodged, this artice examines why the...
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This article analyzes the recent news story surrounding fashion designer Louis Vuitton's cease and desist letter to the University of Pennsylvania Law School regarding alleged trademark dilution. This article reviews merits of Louis Vuitton's...
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One of the policy rationales behind antitrust law is that competition among businesses ultimately benefits society, while restraining or otherwise hindering this competition can stifle the next big idea. This article, however, focuses on...
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The indictment handed down by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the prominent file-sharing website Megaupload represented a rare criminal complaint for copyright violations. This article reviews both entry-level and in-depth analysis of...
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Generic products represent a low-cost alternative to name brands. However, as this article explores, many of these generic product manufacturers engage in facially deceptive practices which could have the effect of leeching some of the benefits...
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Domain name disputes are commonly decided under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDPR), but, as this article indicates, the UDRP often depends upon the quality and clarity of thought of those adjudicating the disputes. The...
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A number of high-profile brands have recently launched re-branding campaigns which, to put it mildly, have fallen flat with consumers and branding experts. This article reviews some of those re-branding campaigns, with a focus on JCPenney's...
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PissedConsumer.com is a "gripe site" where dissatisfied (or, occasionally, satisfied) consumers can post reviews of products or services. Ascentive is a software maker. This article highlights reviews from several prominent legal blogs of...
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The title of this article refers to the attorneys' fees paid by the RIAA to enforce its members' copyrights. The fees are, as the article highlights, astronomical relative to the amount recovered from these enforcement actions; however, as the...
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The NFL is notoriously aggressive in protecting and enforcing its trademarks, and with the Super Bowl on the horizon, this article critiques an article in Consumer Reports for apparently misunderstanding trademark law's fair use...
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One of the things which makes being the target of trademark bullying such a daunting proposition to small companies is the difficulty in getting the bully to pay the other side's attorneys' fees. This article highlights a recent instance of...
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Advocates of the Stop Online Piracy Act portray it as a necessary means of protecting their intellectual property rights from piracy (especially non-domestic piracy). This article takes the contrary viewpoint, explains why rights-holders who...
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The Washington Redskins haven't won a Super Bowl since 1992, way back when Mark Rypien threw to Art Monk and Gary Clark. Coincidentally (probably), as this article relates, that year saw the team become the subject of a lawsuit by a Native...
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Small businesses and startups are vulnerable targets to trademark bullying. However, trademark bullying, although a legitimate fear, and obviously bad to be the target of, is ill-defined; how does one tell the difference between bullying and...
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This article relates anecdotes about bootlegged music, long known to be a violation of copyright law, but nonetheless quite popular. Popular bootlegs mentioned in this article include Springsteen's Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which was later...
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This article uses the recent Chick-fil-A trademark infringement lawsuit against the individual selling t-shirts bearing the slogan "EAT MORE KALE" to write about experiences and trends in trademark bullying. The article explains that one...
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This article responds to a discussion in the blogosphere about a recent decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board holding that a company could not include ".music" as part of a trademark because it was "descriptive." In light of the...
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This article highlights the growing importance of intellectual property rights in China, and posits about the role these intellectual rights will play in Chinese business going forward. As the article notes, China does have a system to protect...
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This is an excerpt from a treatise about business and commercial litigation which Ron Coleman wrote with several former colleagues.
- Summary by FizzLaw Team
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The first scholarly treatment of theories of trademark infringement liability that may apply to third-party sellers of counterfeit merchandise. Ronald Coleman is one of two primary authors of this report of the Association of the Bar of the...
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One of the first scholarly published critiques of the then-nascent doctrine of initial interest confusion in trademark
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This article links to a course Ron Coleman taught about legal aspects of blogging.
- Summary by FizzLaw Team
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"Ron Coleman called this over two years ago." -- Popehat.com blog
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This article links to a class where Ronald Coleman and Tim Baran discuss social media and how it relates to (and poses risks to) attorneys.
- Summary by FizzLaw Team
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This article looks at recent developments in trademark law which have resulted in negative changes to the role of trademarks in business and innovation. The article looks at recent court decisions which will have the effect of encouraging and...
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My presentation materials for an American Intellectual Property Law Association annual meeting panel entitled “G(I)PS: Global IP-Positioning Strategies” moderated by Barbara Fiacco of Foley Hoag, LLP in Boston
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Trademark infringement can result from conduct that doesn’t necessarily create a likelihood of confusion at the point of sale. What about confusion that likely occurs only before or after a sale? Learn from a likelihood of confusion guru, and...
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Massive Attack: Analyzing Mass Copyright Infringement Campaigns Moderator: Stacey L. Dogan, Boston University School of Law Panelists: Ronald D. Coleman, Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP Steven A. Gibson, Righthaven LLC Scott Bain, Software & Information...