Sat.Mar 26, 2022 - Fri.Apr 01, 2022

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The Impact of Russia Legalizing Piracy

Plagiarism Today

Earlier this month, the Russian government began taking steps to broadly legalize the piracy of all content from countries that were sanctioning it. This movie initially began with patents and business software, but has been reportedly expanded to include all types of copyright-protected content. ( Note: There are conflicting reports on whether this has already been signed into law or is just being considered.

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The Humanity of Copyright

Hugh Stephens Blog

Recently the US Copyright Office (USCO) reaffirmed its longstanding position that human authorship is a pre-condition for recognition of copyright, despite being pushed hard by a particular protagonist within the tech community to accept artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a machine (NB his machine) or software as a creator with rights.

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St. Peter’s Peacocks vs UNC Tar Heels : a trademark David vs. Goliath

Erik K Pelton

Tonight in the men’s Elite Eight ® of the NCAA ® March Madness ® basketball tournament, many will be rooting for the underdog, the St. Peter’s Peacocks, against one of the powerhouses of basketball, the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. This isn’t just David vs Goliath on the court, but in trademark protection. The University of North Carolina system owns more than 100 trademark registrations and applications, and UNC at Chapel Hill owns more than 20 registrations.

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Russia’s Site-Blocking System Isn’t Performing & Could Even Collapse

TorrentFreak

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been going on for more than a month. It isn’t going to plan. In parallel with the terrible images being shared around the world, Russia is using its infamous site-blocking systems to deny access to websites that dare to challenge the Kremlin’s narrative of Putin’s ‘Special Operation’ Telecoms regulator Roscomnadzor is working harder than ever to maintain its blockades against everything from Google News, Twitter, Facebook, and

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Software Composition Analysis: The New Armor for Your Cybersecurity

Speaker: Blackberry, OSS Consultants, & Revenera

Software is complex, which makes threats to the software supply chain more real every day. 64% of organizations have been impacted by a software supply chain attack and 60% of data breaches are due to unpatched software vulnerabilities. In the U.S. alone, cyber losses totaled $10.3 billion in 2022. All of these stats beg the question, “Do you know what’s in your software?

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One Teacher’s Approach to Stopping Plagiarism

Plagiarism Today

Shelby Scoffield , a high school English teacher from Mountain House, California, is like many others in that she struggles to enforce academic integrity standards in her classroom. According to her, these problems became worse during the pandemic due to the rise of distance learning. However, even after taking time away to teach basics of academic integrity, she still faced an “onslaught” of papers with serious plagiarism issues.

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NIH’s Fight for Ownership of Moderna’s COVID-19 Patent Highlights Hazards of Business Collaborations

IP Watchdog

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is at legal odds with Moderna, claiming that Moderna neglected to add three NIH scientists to Moderna’s patent application on a principal COVID-19 vaccine. If a court ends up siding with NIH, it would co-own any issued patents on the technology, which could prove to be quite valuable; in 2021, Moderna’s vaccine sales were forecasted to be in the range of $15 billion and $18 billion.

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Oscar Contender Targets Official Oscars Website With a DMCA Takedown Notice

TorrentFreak

The Oscars are the most prestigious film awards and millions of movie fans are looking forward to seeing who the new winners will be. For filmmakers, it’s an incredible honor to be named among the world’s greatest. Even being nominated is an accolade many people can only dream of. This year, the Spanish drama film “Parallel Mothers” (Madres Paralelas) is among the lucky few.

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Asghar Farhadi’s High-Stakes Plagiarism Battle

Plagiarism Today

Asghar Farhadi is a critically acclaimed Iranian director who, among his various awards, can boast about two Academy Award-winning films under his name. He is, without a doubt, one of the biggest names in filmmaking in both Iran and the international filmmaking scene broadly. However, as per The Hollywood Reporter, he now finds himself in the middle of a high-stakes plagiarism battle.

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Upcycled Goods: Considering When Restoration Crosses into Infringement

IP Watchdog

Two recent decisions dealing with high-end watches illustrate the fine line between permissible and infringing modifications when the final product bears a trademark of the original maker. As the trend of “upcycling” or “creative reuse” continues to grow, entrepreneurs should be aware of the potential pitfalls in modifying the products of others. Generally, the first sale or “exhaustion” doctrine protects a reseller of authentic goods from infringement liability—but only when the goods have not

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Overlap of Enablement and Eligibility

Patently-O

New pending petition for certiorari in Interactive Wearables, LLC v. Polar Electro Oy , 21-1281 (Supreme Court 2022) on patent eligibility grounds. Question presented: The patents-in-suit are directed to an electronics hardware device comprising a content player/remote-control combination having numerous concretely-recited components that undisputedly qualifies as a “machine” or “manufacture” under the statutory language of 35 U.S.C. § 101.

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IPO Diversity in Innovation Toolkit

Women and diverse employees have the technical skill and knowledge, yet their contributions are not patented at the same rate as those of their male counterparts.This toolkit can help organizations move the needle on achieving gender parity in innovation.

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LiquidVPN Ordered to Pay Filmmakers $14m in Copyright Damages

TorrentFreak

A few years ago piracy-related lawsuits were pretty straightforward. Copyright holders would either sue alleged file-sharers or the operators of pirate sites. More recently, we have seen a new breed of lawsuits filed on behalf of the makers of movies such as “Angel Has Fallen”, “Dallas Buyer’s Club”, “Hellboy” and “Rambo V: Last Blood” These lawsuits target VPN providers, which are generally seen as third-party intermediaries.

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3 Count: Granted Cert

Plagiarism Today

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday. 1: Supreme Court to Hear Copyright Dispute Over Andy Warhol’s Images of Musician Prince. First off today, John Fritze at USA Today reports that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that pits photographer Lynn Goldsmith against the estate of artist Andy Warhol.

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CAFC Upholds PTAB Precedential Opinion Panel Decision Despite ‘Problematic’ Reasoning

IP Watchdog

On March 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Precedential Opinion Panel’s (POP’s) decision allowing patent owner DynaEnergetics Europe GmH to amend its claims, and also affirmed the PTAB’s decision that the original claims of the patent were unpatentable. Hunting Titan, Inc. petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1–15 of the U.S.

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Webinar on ‘Is the Leaked TRIPS Waiver Text a Loss for India?’ [March 30]

SpicyIP

We’re pleased to inform you that Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), People’s Vaccine Alliance (India) and Campaign for Access to Medicines, Diagnostics and Devices (CAMD-India) would like to invite you to a webinar on “ Is the leaked TRIPS Waiver text a loss for India? ” to discuss the critical issues in the leaked text on 30th March, 2022. For further details, please see the announcement below: Webinar on ‘ Is the leaked TRIPS Waiver text a loss for India?

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YouTube Needs a Copyright Specialist To Handle ‘High-Risk’ Takedowns

TorrentFreak

Those wanting to learn how many DMCA notices have been sent to Google over the past few years need look no further than the copyright section of its vast and constantly updated Transparency Report. This colossal database contains information on more than five billion DMCA takedown requests, including who sent them, when, and which platforms were targeted.

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3 Count: Dance Dance Lawsuit

Plagiarism Today

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday. 1: Epic Games Hit with Another Lawsuit Over Fortnite Dance Moves. First off today, Austen Goslin at Polygon reports that choreographer Kyle Hanagami has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games alleging that the video game company copied his choreography for an emote in the game Fortnite.

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NAPA to Take On Tillis’ Unified IP Office Study

IP Watchdog

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has agreed to perform a study requested earlier this month by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) to explore “whether Congress should create a unified, stand-alone, and independent Intellectual Property Office.” NAPA President and CEO Teresa Gerton said its full-time research staff and Academy Fellows are well-positioned to do the work requested and that NAPA would begin discussions with the U.S.

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Section 230 Preempts Game User’s Lawsuit Over Game Moderators’ Behavior–Quinteros v. Forge of Empires

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

This lawsuit involves the freemium videogame “ Forge of Empires.” The plaintiff, Penny Quinteros (a/k/a TwoCents), claims she became addicted to the game. She played the game virtually every day from 2016-19–over 10,000 hours worth–and spent over $9,000 on in-game transactions. She also claims that she was harassed by in-game moderators who are “volunteers” but compensated with extra in-game privileges and currency.

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“CODA” Piracy Skyrockets After Best Picture Oscar Win

TorrentFreak

The Oscars are the most anticipated movie awards show of the year, closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans around the world. This year’s awards ceremony received plenty of attention as well, with most of the media focusing on the Will Smith incident. Luckily, the winners didn’t get unnoticed by the public at large. There are two films that clearly stand out.

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3 Count: Too Little, Too Late

Plagiarism Today

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday. 1: Court Denies Cox’s Challenge of $1 Billion Music Piracy Verdict. First off today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that a Virginia federal court has rejected Cox Communications’ bid to overturn a $1 billion judgment against them in their long-running dispute with the record labels.

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Patent Filings Roundup: Intel Cancels Qualcomm Claims on Remand; New Rideshare, Cloud Storage NPE Campaigns Launched

IP Watchdog

Some new assertion entities popped up this week, including a high-stakes campaign filed by LS Cloud Storage Technologies LLC (a Waco vintage, if from 2016) on a couple of data-sharing patents (one very old, one somewhat new, U.S. 6,549,988 and U.S. 10,154,092). There was also a new ride-sharing NPE campaign from Fare Technologies LLC (another older LLC with apparent ties to monetizers) against Uber and Lyft on just one patent, RE46727.

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Economic conditions outlook, March 2022

McKinsey Operations

Worries about geopolitical conflicts, among other risks to growth, now exceed executives’ concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall economic optimism continues to decline.

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Dutch Pirate Site Blocklist Expands with RARBG, YTS, EZTV and Others

TorrentFreak

Pirate site blocking is a common practice in dozens of countries around the world. In most cases, ISPs are ordered to take action after a relatively short court proceeding. In the Netherlands, it took more than a decade for the first order to be approved. It took detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice before the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay.

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Delhi High Court Revives PPL’s Copyright Society Registration Application, Sets Aside Registration of RMPL

SpicyIP

Image from here. The seemingly never-ending saga of copyright licensing societies in India has taken a fresh turn after the Delhi High Court (through Justice Yogesh Khanna) in its judgement of March 9, 2022, accepted Phonographic Performance Limited’s (PPL) Writ Petitions directing the Government of India to reconsider PPL’s application for registration as a copyright society, and accordingly, to set aside the registration of Recorded Music Performance Limited (RMPL) as a copyright society for s

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Similar & Identical Trademarks in India – How to Identify Them Well?

Kashishipr

It is imperative to have Registered Trademarks in place to have one’s business stand out in the market and create a significant brand value. However, developing a unique and eye-catching mark is not an easy task. In India, trademarks are registered, protected, and enforced under the Trademarks Act of 1999 (referred to as the ‘Act’ further in this article).

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Government-Forced Technology Transfer Is Almost Always Wrong

IP Watchdog

What does the invasion of Ukraine have to do with COVID-19? Would you believe intellectual property is the link? Stay with me on this; it’s an interesting story. Recently, it was confirmed that the Main Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine – apparently with some help from volunteer hackers – managed to breach the network of Russia’s most guarded nuclear power facility and make off with extremely valuable trade secrets.

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Russian ‘Loop Hero’ Dev Approves Piracy After Sanctions Hobble Steam

TorrentFreak

When Vladimir Putin’s tanks and an estimated 200,000 troops began to roll across the border on February 24, 2022, his military expected swift subjugation of Ukraine. Four weeks later amid massive loss of human life and widespread destruction, things are not going to plan for Russia, militarily or economically. An unprecedented sanctions package aimed at deterring Putin has plunged Russia’s economy into crisis and in common with Russia’s bombs hitting innocent civilians in Ukrai

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“Rock ‘n Roll, Redskins & Free Speech”

Likelihood of Confusion

I have tried not to overload the blog with media coverage about our Supreme Court case involving THE SLANTS, but this is pretty ginchy: Originally posted 2017-02-21 13:10:28. Republished by. The post “Rock ‘n Roll, Redskins & Free Speech” appeared first on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION™.

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Putin’s Puppets Pick on Peppa Pig: Intellectual property rights are collateral damage in the economic war between Russia and the nations supporting Ukraine

JD Supra Law

As we’ve reported elsewhere in our blog, the U.S., EU, and other nations recently have enacted significant economic sanctions against Russian individuals and entities in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is striking back, and intellectual property (“IP”) rights are fair game in this economic war.

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CAFC Says Dyfan Claim Limitations are Not Invalid Due to Means-Plus-Function Format

IP Watchdog

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed and remanded a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas that Dyfan, LLC’s claims were invalid as indefinite. The CAFC concluded that the disputed claim limitations were not drafted in means-plus-function format, and therefore 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6 did not apply.

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Bungie Files Lawsuit to Punish Senders of Fake Destiny DMCA Notices

TorrentFreak

Notices of infringment sent by rightsholders under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are supposed to identify infringing content so that online services can remove it, thus protecting the rightful owners. Increasingly, however, a minority of online actors view DMCA notices as a tool to disrupt and disappear content that isn’t infringing at all.

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Ensuring Antitrust in Digital Markets

Olartemoure Blog

Trends in Litigation Against Big Tech. How has antitrust law been built up? What is it about? Colombian law prevents trade restraints (Unfair Competition and Antitrust practices). It is a challenge for the institutional framework, enforcement agencies, and courts to effectively develop their missions, because, even with the current resources, some markets remain unexplored or wrongly understood.

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[PODCAST] The Role of ADR in Resolving IP Disputes in the Life Sciences Industry

JD Supra Law

A podcast from JAMS featuring Steven Bauer and Sarah Geers on how ADR can play a pivotal role in resolving IP-related disputes in the life sciences industry - In this podcast, Steven Bauer, mediator and arbitrator at JAMS, and Sarah Geers, partner at the global law firm Jones Day, discuss the types of intellectual property disputes they are seeing in the life sciences industry and the advantages of using ADR to resolve these cases, as well as how the process might evolve in the future.

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Marketing With the Stars of March: NCAA Athletes and the New ‘NIL’ Policy

IP Watchdog

Name, Image, and Likeness, or “NIL,” is the buzz word spinning around college athletics. In July 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) adopted its Interim NIL Policy (“the Policy”) which allows, for the first time, student athletes to monetize their NIL rights without losing scholarships or eligibility. Fans love college sports and cheering on athletes who play for their alma mater or favorite school teams, which creates collaboration opportunities for athletes and brands ali

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TV Boss Threatens Mastercard & Visa Over Support For Pirate Sites

TorrentFreak

While all kinds of measures are promoted as the best way to deal with pirate streaming sites and unlicensed IPTV services, one of the best long-term strategies is to offer legal content on a convenient platform at a fair price. Like all fights against piracy, failing in any area can lead to issues. Persistent price increases, platform exclusives, and the need to subscribe to multiple platforms to get an acceptable content library can put customers off, meaning that pirate sites again find the ox