Erik K Pelton
JUNE 13, 2023
The following is an edited transcript of my video Anatomy of an Appeal to the TT A B. Every year, a few hundred refusals from the Patent and Trademark Office on trademark applications end up getting appealed to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). It’s a small percentage of the overall number of applications and of the overall number of refusals.
IP Watchdog
JUNE 13, 2023
Taco Bell is on the short list as one of my guilty (or not-so-guilty) pleasures. So, when the popular restaurant chain filed a cancellation action against the TACO TUESDAY trademark, I knew I had to write a piece about it. On May 16, 2023, Taco Bell filed a Petition for Cancellation of the trademark for TACO TUESDAY, which was registered by Spicy Seasonings, LLC in 1989 for “restaurant services.
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Plagiarism Today
JUNE 15, 2023
Music publishers filed a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter. But despite the large numbers, the case is actually fairly mundane. The post Why Twitter is Being Sued for $250 Million appeared first on Plagiarism Today.
Hugh Stephens Blog
JUNE 11, 2023
Roughly a month after the CRTC charged out the gate by launching public consultations on the regulations it will issue to implement Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, (Implementing Canada’s Online Streaming Act: The CRTC is Fast Out of the Gate), the government has finally issued the promised Policy Directive that is to guide these … Continue reading "Implementing the Online Streaming Act: Government Policy Directive to CRTC is Missing Key Elements"
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?
Erik K Pelton
JUNE 12, 2023
On Friday, the USPTO sent out a notice to many trademark owners who’s email address were “recently identified a data security incident that impacted domicile information in certain trademark filings between February 2020 and March 2023.” This incident is quite concerning, as the USPTO has maintained for several years that the applicant email address (when an application is filed using an attorney) would be hidden from all publicly accessible records.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 15, 2023
Under U.S. law, online service providers need to respond to takedown notices and implement a meaningful policy to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. Many of the large social media platforms stick to these rules, but according to a lawsuit filed this week by several prominent music companies, Twitter is not among them. ‘Breeding Mass Copyright Infringement’ Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI and others filed a complaint at a federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, accusing Twit
Intellectual Property Pulse brings together the best content for IP professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Intellectual Property Law Blog
JUNE 16, 2023
On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision held that a trademark claim concerning “a squeaky, chewable dog toy designed to look like a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey” which, as a play on words, turns the words “Jack Daniels” into “Bad Spaniels” and the descriptive phrase “Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” into “The Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet” does not receive special First Amendment treatment where the accused infringer used the trademarks at issue to designate
The Trichordist
JUNE 13, 2023
Maybe the reason Spotify can’t make a profit is because it is run by idiots.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 12, 2023
According to the original complaint filed July 2, 2020, this was a case about “copyright piracy” and how YouTube, the largest video-sharing website in the world, plays host to huge numbers of videos infringing on the rights of copyright holders. It was a case about how YouTube facilitates and induces a “hotbed of copyright infringement” through its development and implementation of a copyright enforcement system called Content ID, a system that protects powerful copyright
Plagiarism Today
JUNE 15, 2023
Twitter hit with massive lawsuit over music, Senate bill targets AI protections, and 2 Megaupload employees sentenced. The post 3 Count: Mega Prison Sentence appeared first on Plagiarism Today.
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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.
Intellectual Property Law Blog
JUNE 13, 2023
This case addresses pleading standards in view of contradicting factual assertions and a complaint’s disavowal of statements in an exhibit. Background Healthier Choices Management Corp. (“HCM”) sued Philip Morris for patent infringement accusing Philip’s “electronic nicotine delivery system” called the IQOS system. HCM’s patent claims an electronic smoking device, that includes a limitation that recites a “combustible material reservoir” that “initiat[es] a combustion reaction in the combustible
Erik K Pelton
JUNE 10, 2023
Last week, Erik provided comments to the USPTO’s Trademark Public Advisory Committee regarding proposed changes (increases) to many trademark fees. My comments touched on numerous topics, but focused in large part on the impact that USPTO trademark filing fee increases will have on small businesses, as well as the USPTO’s IT expenditures. Below are the remarks Erik presented at the hearing last week.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 12, 2023
For several decades, The Scene has been a key source for pirated content that’s made available on the Internet. Technically, release groups operate in a closed ecosystem, but the reality is different. The vast majority of the files published on private Scene servers eventually find their way to public pirate sites. The secretive nature of The Scene has been a major challenge for law enforcement but in the summer of 2020, the US Department of Justice made a major breakthrough.
Plagiarism Today
JUNE 13, 2023
As companies look to make use of AI-generated content, they're also finding ways to mitigate the legal risks that come with it. The post Mitigating Copyright Dangers of Using AI Content appeared first on Plagiarism Today.
Patently-O
JUNE 13, 2023
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced a call for nominations for membership in its esteemed Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) and the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC). These committees were established under the Patent and Trademark Office Efficiency Act in 1999 with the task of advising the Secretary of Commerce and the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property on patent and trademark operations, including agency management, goals, performance, b
IP Watchdog
JUNE 13, 2023
Today, the International Trademark Association (INTA) published an amicus brief filed with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a case that should have major implications for the effects of Brexit on EU trademark law. INTA’s brief asks the CJEU to reverse a lower court’s decision and rule that the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) was correct in determining that UK trademark law can no longer provide a legal interest to sustain an opposition to an EU trademark application f
TorrentFreak
JUNE 14, 2023
Soap2Day, one of the most popular movie and TV show pirate streaming sites on the Internet, says it has closed down ‘forever’ Official domains including soap2day.to, soap2day.ac, soap2day.sh, soap2day.mx, s2dfree.to, s2dfree.cc, s2dfree.de, s2dfree.is, s2dfree.nl , plus the site’s domain uptime advisory pages at soapgate.org and soapgate.cc , all display the same shutdown message.
Plagiarism Today
JUNE 14, 2023
Judge tosses banana art case, Tokyo court rules against blogger in subtitle battle and Comcast forced to identify suspected pirate. The post 3 Count: Banana Problems appeared first on Plagiarism Today.
JD Supra Law
JUNE 16, 2023
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the INFORM Act will take effect on June 27. Businesses with an online presence should understand what the new law means and how to prepare to avoid penalties. See Gibney’s prior update for more details on the Act requirements.
IP Watchdog
JUNE 15, 2023
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled in a precedential decision Wednesday that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was correct to affirm a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiner’s finding that the claims of U.S. Patent Application 15/131,442 were obvious in view of the prior art. The patent application was filed by John Couvaras and covers a method of reducing high blood pressure.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 14, 2023
Two years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the ‘Destiny 2’ cheating software. AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law.
Plagiarism Today
JUNE 13, 2023
YouTube settles case with composer, Marvel resolves copyright termination dispute, and Distrokid sued over handling of DMCA notices. The post 3 Count: Settling Down appeared first on Plagiarism Today.
IP and Legal Filings
JUNE 12, 2023
Introduction The word ‘parody’ refers to work that uses humor as a means to critique, ridicule, or expose the flaws in existing work. A parody, by its nature, requires the audience to recognize the original work, and the way the work is critiqued or ridiculed. For this reason, a parody is argued to be dependent upon and is said to borrow from the existing work.
IP Watchdog
JUNE 12, 2023
Prioritized examination, known sometimes as “Track One,” has been in place at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the past 12 years. The program, launched in September 2011 provides applicants with greater control over how quickly a patent application will be examined and offers a fast-track to an issued U.S. utility or plant patent that would be otherwise unattainable.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 10, 2023
The success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT inspired Microsoft to add more AI features to its Bing search engine. The idea is that this will allow users to receive more elaborate answers compared to an ordinary list of links. Whether this strategy will pay off has yet to be seen, but in our tests, something else stood out. People are not the only ones asking questions.
IP Tech Blog
JUNE 13, 2023
Reasoning that the form of a copyright registration does not really matter, the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s ruling that real estate photography provider VHT was entitled to statutory damages for 2,700 photos infringed by Zillow even though VHT had registered all of the works at issue as part of a single database. Zillow argued that VHT should be held to its registration, i.e., that the infringement was of a single work for which VHT could obtain a single statutory damage a
JD Supra Law
JUNE 14, 2023
On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products, LLC, a trademark case concerning the First Amendment parody defense. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Kagan, the court sided with Jack Daniel’s Properties, ruling that the First Amendment did not protect the “Bad Spaniels” dog chew toy that mimicked the iconic Jack Daniel’s liquor bottle (see side-by-side comparison below).
IP Watchdog
JUNE 12, 2023
Parus Holdings, Inc. was unsuccessful today in its bid to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to reverse two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions invalidating its patent claims for voice recognition technology. The CAFC in part said in a precedential decision authored by Judge Lourie that since Parus violated the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) regulation against arguments incorporated by reference, the PTAB did not have to consider evidence related to
TorrentFreak
JUNE 13, 2023
Strike 3 Holdings has been a familiar name in U.S. federal courts for a while now. Last year, the adult entertainment company filed a record-breaking number of lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent pirates. The company is keeping up this pace in 2023, averaging dozens of lawsuits per week. Most of these are never mentioned in the press and a large number are settled behind closed doors.
Erik K Pelton
JUNE 13, 2023
Learn more about the ways that our firm gives back and works to reduce its footprint, all while we continue to make trademarks bloom. The post EMP&A’s Seeds of Sustainability appeared first on Erik M Pelton & Associates, PLLC. Learn more about the ways that our firm gives back and works to reduce its footprint, all while we continue to make trademarks bloom.
Michael Geist
JUNE 16, 2023
The fallout from Bill C-11 has been the subject of several posts this week, including the demands from a wide range of services for exceptions to the law and warnings from streaming services such as PBS and AMC that they may block the Canadian market due to the regulatory burden imposed by the law. While those stories focus on the availability of services and content in Canada, a new Variety report points to another negative impact from the bill: less film and television production in Canada, at
The Trichordist
JUNE 16, 2023
Spotify follows bidding of tyrannical Chinese Communist Party while long time Hong Kong freedom fighter Jimmy Lai rots in prison after show trial.
TorrentFreak
JUNE 11, 2023
In the wake of the 30+ year prison sentences handed down to the people behind Flawless IPTV, we’ve been exploring various aspects of the service’s operations and the extraordinary effort expended by the Premier League to bring Flawless down. While no single facet of Flawless’ operations can explain why such punitive sentences were considered appropriate, the emphasis on the service’s efforts to undermine the Premier League’s ISP blocking program played no small part
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
JUNE 16, 2023
This case involves a customer’s Amazon review asserting that a merchant sold fake goods. The merchant sued Amazon (pro se) for defamation based on the review. The 11th Circuit easily dismisses the claim per Section 230. ICS Provider. “Amazon’s website allows customers to view, purchase, and post reviews online, and therefore provides computer access by multiple users similar to an online message board or a website exchange system.” [Jargon note: I have no idea what a R
Michael Geist
JUNE 15, 2023
The Bill C-11 process featured a marked divide on the implications for consumer choice. While Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez claimed it would lead to increased choice (a claim he re-iterated this week in Banff), critics of the bill argued that the opposite was true , namely that the bill would likely lead to fewer services entering the Canadian market or streamers reducing content choices.
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