Sat.Jun 10, 2023 - Fri.Jun 16, 2023

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The TACO TUESDAY Trademark Tiff Reminds Us that Genericide is Real

IP Watchdog

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.

Trademark 119
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Why Twitter is Being Sued for $250 Million

Plagiarism Today

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.

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Implementing the Online Streaming Act: Government Policy Directive to CRTC is Missing Key Elements

Hugh Stephens Blog

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"

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What to do if you received USPTO “Notice of Data Security Incident” regarding your trademark filing

Erik K Pelton

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.

Trademark 147
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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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Supreme Court Rules “That Dog Don’t Hunt”: Bad Spaniels Toy’s Use of JACK DANIELS Marks is a Poor Parody and Dilution Act Applies

Intellectual Property Law Blog

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

Fair Use 130
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How a Photographer Won Awards with Plagiarized Images

Plagiarism Today

An Italian photographer is facing allegations after winning several awards using another photographer's work. Here's how to prevent it. The post How a Photographer Won Awards with Plagiarized Images appeared first on Plagiarism Today.

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USPTO Advisory Committees: An Opportunity to Advocate for Beneficial Innovation

Patently-O

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

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INTA Urges CJEU to Find No Legal Interest in EU Opposition to Pre-Brexit Trademark Applications

IP Watchdog

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

Trademark 118
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Mitigating Copyright Dangers of Using AI Content

Plagiarism Today

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.

Copyright 210
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TV Show Release Group CAKES Quits The Scene & Shuts Down

TorrentFreak

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.

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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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INFORM ACT Takes Effect June 27: What Businesses Need to Know

JD Supra Law

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.

Business 112
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Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB Finding that Claims for Blood Pressure Treatment are Obvious

IP Watchdog

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.

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3 Count: Banana Problems

Plagiarism Today

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.

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Court: Comcast Must Identify Accused BitTorrent Pirate

TorrentFreak

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.

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Parody under the Copyright Law

IP and Legal Filings

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.

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Prioritized Examination: Why Filing a Track One Application Makes Sense

IP Watchdog

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.

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3 Count: Mega Prison Sentence

Plagiarism Today

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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Court Confirms Bungie’s $3.6m DMCA Violation Win Against AimJunkies

TorrentFreak

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.

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Ninth Circuit Holds that Registration of a Single Photography Database Supports Award of Statutory Damages for Each Individual Photo in the Database

IP Tech Blog

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

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CAFC Affirms Google’s PTAB Invalidation of Voice Recognition Patent Claims

IP Watchdog

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

Patent 110
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3 Count: Settling Down

Plagiarism Today

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.

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Music Companies Sue Twitter Over Mass Copyright Infringement

TorrentFreak

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

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Mass transportation and mass communication to the public

Kluwer Copyright Blog

On 20 April 2023 in the joined cases Blue Air ( C-775/21) and SNTFC (C-826/21) the CJEU pronounced once again on the infringement of the right of communication to the public, making a further contribution to the already rich case law in this field. This time the questions related to the existence (or not) of a communication to the public by persons who have installed equipment that can be used for the broadcasting of copyright protected works.

Music 104
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Supreme Court’s Jack Daniel’s Decision Clarifies First Amendment Parody Defense in Trademark Infringement Cases

JD Supra Law

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).

Trademark 101
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The Bill C-11 Fallout Continues: Disney+ Pauses Original Commissions in Canada

Michael Geist

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

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Bing Asks Users How They Protect Themselves On The Pirate Bay

TorrentFreak

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 142
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Michelangelo’s David and cultural heritage images. The Italian pseudo-intellectual property and the end of public domain

Kluwer Copyright Blog

Attributed to Daniele da Volterra, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons On 20 April 2023, the Italian Civil Court of first instance of Florence (Tribunale civile di Firenze) issued a decision that held unlawful the reproduction by lenticular technique of the image of Michelangelo’s David and its juxtaposition with the image of a male model on the cover of GQ magazine.

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Zillow Loses Second Round of Copyright Fight Over Real Estate Photos

The IP Law Blog

On June 7, 2023, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in VHT, Inc. v. Zillow Group, Inc., in which it affirmed the trial court’s findings of infringement against Zillow and the award of statutory damages. In 2019, the Ninth Circuit had previously found mostly in Zillow’s favor as to an earlier trial and had reversed and remanded the case back for further proceedings.

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Foreign Internet Streaming Services Warn CRTC Its Bill C-11 Regulations May Lead to Blocked Content or Services in Canada

Michael Geist

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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Former Megaupload Executives Sentenced to 2.5 Years in Prison

TorrentFreak

Faced with extradition to the United States to face copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering charges, last year Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk made a big decision. In May 2022, the former Megaupload executives revealed that they had signed a deal to avoid extradition and would be charged with crimes in New Zealand instead. One month later, the men pleaded guilty to a raft of crimes, safe in the knowledge that any sentence would be served in New Zealand, not in a U.S. pri

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Significant Observations as the CCB Turns One

Copyright Alliance

A year has flown by since the launch of operations of the small-claims copyright tribunal, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), by the U.S. Copyright Office on June 16, 2022. The […] The post Significant Observations as the CCB Turns One appeared first on Copyright Alliance.

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Traditional Knowledge and Trade Secrets

IP and Legal Filings

Introduction In the forests of Kerala, certain members of the Kani tribe were knowledgeable about a magnificent healing herb known as Jeevani. In 1987, a team of scientists approached the tribe to know about the secret plant with healing properties. The Kathis, the custodian of the traditional knowledge was initially reluctant to tell them the name of the plant but the scientists were finally led to the plants.

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Win Your Office Pool on MLC Salary Raises!

The Trichordist

If you’re like us, you have an office pool on who will win the eagerly anticipated release of the MLC’s 2022 tax return! “Winning” in this case… Read more "Win Your Office Pool on MLC Salary Raises!

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No Trial Today or Ever: YouTube Content ID Lawsuit Dismissed at 11th Hour

TorrentFreak

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

Copyright 141
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SCOTUS Says Retrials are Appropriate Remedy in Improper Venue Cases

IP Watchdog

The U.S. Supreme Court today delivered a ruling that flows from a trade secrets theft case, holding that “the Constitution permits the retrial of a defendant following a trial in an improper venue conducted before a jury drawn from the wrong district.” The underlying case involves a software engineer, Timothy Smith, who stole trade secrets from StrikeLines, a company that uses proprietary technology to identify private, artificial reefs that individuals construct to attract fish and then sells t