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On May 21, the popular K-pop band BTS released their latest single, Butter. However, despite the popularity of the track and solid reviews for it, the release itself has been anything but buttery smooth. The reason is that the track has faced not one, but two separate allegations of plagiarism, with many fans and critics alike wondering if the band may have run afoul of copyright law.
Last week I posted a blog on the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), draft US legislation that seeks to end the exemption that US terrestrial broadcasters enjoy with respect to payment of broadcast royalties to performers and labels for playing recorded music.
The following is a transcript of my video Three Mistakes That Can Sink Any Trademark Application. I’ve working with thousands of trademark applications that I have filed clients and, before that, as an examiner at the USPTO. In addition, I spent quite a bit of time just researching and looking at trademark applications of other filers all the time.
The “repeat infringer” issue remains a hot topic in US courts after rightsholders filed lawsuits against several ISPs. These Internet providers are accused of not doing enough to stop copyright infringers on their networks, even after receiving multiple ‘copyright infringement’ notifications. The copyright infringement allegations can have real consequences.
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?
On Tuesday, the Stanford Law School announced that it was launching a new GitHub Developer Rights Fellowship as part of its Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic. The new fellowship is being funded by the code-sharing website GitHub, which is tapping its $1 million Developer Defense Fund to make it happen. The move comes on the heels of some trying times for GitHub when it comes to the DMCA.
The Patent Infringer Lobby has ramped up banging the drum about “patent quality.” They dedicated a week-long campaign to questioning "patent quality,” which its constituents regard as a huge problem. Advocates have taken advantage of the vacuum left after U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu left the building. Anti-patent advocates are exploiting the new dynamic of Senator Patrick Leahy, coauthor of the America Invents Act (AIA), who now chairs the Senate Intellectual P
[The 2021 edition of my Internet Law casebook is coming soon. This excerpt is a new note on the CCB. TL;DR: I’m not a fan.]. Before mid-2022, the Copyright Office will deploy a new adjudicatory function called the Copyright Claims Board (CCB). The CCB will be dominated by claims over alleged online infringement, so it’s a major development for online copyright law.
[The 2021 edition of my Internet Law casebook is coming soon. This excerpt is a new note on the CCB. TL;DR: I’m not a fan.]. Before mid-2022, the Copyright Office will deploy a new adjudicatory function called the Copyright Claims Board (CCB). The CCB will be dominated by claims over alleged online infringement, so it’s a major development for online copyright law.
Internet provider Cox Communications has been on the sharp end of several piracy lawsuits in recent years. In December 2015, a Virginia federal jury held Cox Communications responsible for pirating subscribers, ordering the company to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages. This damages figure was reduced in a settlement agreement but, soon after, the Internet provider was hit with a $1 billion jury verdict in a similar case, which is still under appeal.
Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday. 1: Cox Settles Dispute with BMG, Rightscorp Over Copyright Notices. First off today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that Cox Communications has settled its dispute with BMG and Rightscorp over allegedly false Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) filed by Rightscorp on BMG’s behalf.
South Africa’s patent office has granted the first patent for an invention conceived by an artificial intelligence (AI) inventor, DABUS. The country does not have a substantive patent examination system, and thus the significance of the grant may not be as great as it would be in other jurisdictions—but the DABUS team is celebrating. The patent is for “a food container based on fractal geometry,” and was accepted by South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission on June 24.
by Dennis Crouch. A potentially important product design trademark case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court involving those chocolate covered bready-sticks. Ezaki Glico Kabushiki Kaisha v. Lotte International America Corp. , Docket No. 20-1817 (Supreme Court 2021). . Glico’s Pocky product has been sold since 1966 and are apparently popular.
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.
Ever since the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren fight was streamed illegally online, Triller has been filing copyright infringement lawsuits against the alleged culprits. The campaign began with a $100m complaint against multiple “business entities” but a judge dismissed all but one of the parties from the action, warning that by joining all of them as cooperating parties, the illegal conduct of one defendant could be wrongly attributed to another independent defendant.
As some of our readers may have noted, a Parliamentary Standing Committee Report, titled ‘ Review of the Intellectual Property Rights Regime in India’ was released on July 23, 2021. Though the report gives some word space to ‘public interest’ and similar concepts, the overall approach seems to be a very pro-industry one, with academia and civil society stakeholders not even being consulted, even though corporate trade groups’ and law firms’ views were heard (
In The Chemours Company FC, LLC v. Daikin Industries, Ltd., Nos. 2020-1289, 2020-1290 (Fed. Cir. July 22, 2021) (“Chemours v. Daikin”), the Federal Circuit clarified three doctrines involved in the determination of obviousness: teaching away, commercial success, and blocking patents. While all three panel judges agreed that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) misapplied the commercial success and blocking patents doctrines, they disagreed as to the Board’s application of the teaching awa
by Dennis Crouch. Most patents involve two or more joint inventors who all claim to have contributed significantly to the invention. Conception of the invention is typically seen as the critical legal determinant of invention and some courts have written that each joint inventor must have contributed substantially to the conception of the invention.* Conception is typically referred to as a mental act.
Back in 2016, the European Commission announced plans to amend EU copyright law to better meet emerging challenges on the Internet. One of the most controversial elements of the new Copyright Directive was Article 13 (now Article 17). This would require many online services such as YouTube to either legally license content from copyright holders or put filtering mechanisms in place to ensure disputed content is taken down not re-uploaded by users.
Seven Important Traits - Attempting to value NFTs is a speculative and challenging practice, in part because they are still relatively new and there are few comparable assets. The newsletter Bankless gives seven traits to consider when determining an NFT’s value: First is chain security. It is important to the buyer that the underlying blockchain stays secure.
Woods Rogers PLC is seeking a USPTO Registered Patent Attorney to join our Intellectual Property Practice Group. Candidate must be willing to assist and take initiative with marketing opportunities in and around Virginia. Competitive salary and excellent benefits in an entrepreneurial environment for a rapidly growing patent practice in either Charlottesville, VA, or Richmond, VA.
We are pleased to bring you a guest post by Yashi Agrawal on India’s recent accession to the Locarno Agreement, discussing inter alia the resultant amendments to India’s design laws and prospective benefits to India on becoming a part of the Locarno Special Union and Assembly. Yashi is a fourth year student at the Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur.
When it comes to civil anti-piracy enforcement, BREIN is without a doubt one of the best-known players in the industry. The group, which receives support from Hollywood and other content industries, has shuttered hundreds of smaller sites and services in recent history. It was also responsible for taking down Mininova, once one of the largest torrent sites online.
by Dennis Crouch. Here, the CAFC has vacated a PTAB IPR decision based upon a sua sponte claim construction. The court found that the agency did not provide the notice and opportunity to respond required by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). . Qualcomm Inc. v. Intel Corp., Appeal No. 20-1589 ( Fed. Cir. 2021 ). Intel filed six different IPR petitions challenging Qualcomm’s US Patent No. 9,608,675.
Long time readers of the IPKat may remember a while back, when the Academy logo (featuring the Oscar statue silhouette) was denied copyright registration. The US Copyright Office concluded that the logo was a derivative work of the Oscar statuette and did not possess the requisite authorship to sustain a (self-standing) claim to copyright. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association faced the same problem last week, when its request to register its 2018 version of Golden Globe statuette was rejected
Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held an Executive Business Meeting in which the Committee discussed and favorably reported four bills aimed at reducing prescription drug prices for consumers and curbing perceived abuses of the patent system by brand pharmaceutical companies. The bills would do so by increasing the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) authority to initiate enforcement actions against drug companies.
In the past, those operating unlicensed torrent sites or streaming services in the UK needed to be aware of breaching civil copyright law, action that could result in a damages award but not a custodial sentence. Times have changed. These days civil copyright actions have almost completely disappeared and it’s now exponentially more likely that offenders will be pursued in criminal cases, ones that have the potential to put them behind bars.
Counterfeit electronics coming from China are an increasing problem for many companies. The proportion that are seized by US customs is miniscule compared to those that reach make it into the country, despite recently increase efforts. Raids on the sources of such goods (e.g. a factory) may not help much because, in many cases, other sources can quickly take over production.
As most readers must be aware by now, the Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on India’s IP regime has revealed a problematic, maximalist approach to IP protection, showing no more than a tokenistic appreciation of public interest considerations. Some of the glaring issues with the Report have been highlighted by Prof Scaria ( here ) and Praharsh ( here ).
In this post, I wrote about some of the difficulties that U.S. formalities present to many independent creators, difficulties highlighted in the case Unicolors v. H&M. I cited a paper written by Steven Tepp for the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and mentioned that I would follow up with a podcast to delve a little […]. The post Podcast – Formalities in U.S.
Rather than test their skills on a level playing field, some gamers prefer to deploy third-party cheating software to gain a competitive advantage. This is particularly prevalent in multiplayer games where being able to shoot through walls, automatically aim, run at advantageous speeds and retain ammo supplies naturally provides a competitive advantage.
Lawyerist Lab member Erik Pelton shares his experience with sprucing up his branding and how that helped with his client acquisition process. If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, get the first chapter right now for free! Thanks to Clio, Postali, Rankings.io, and TextExpander for sponsoring this episode.
image from here. One may recall the scene in Macbeth where he encounters the ghost of his former friend Banquo and exclaims in disbelief. I am sure many would have exclaimed with similar sentiment after reading the suggestions of the recent Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on Review of IPR regime in India, which suggests re-institution of IPAB.
by Dennis Crouch. Amarin Pharma, Inc. v. Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Docket No. 21-02024 (Fed. Cir. 2021) is up on appeal again. The district court found Amarin’s asserted patent claims obvious and the Federal Circuit affirmed that holding in a R.36 affirmance without opinion. Following the Federal Circuit’s decision, an ad-hoc group of doctors, patients, and Amarin stock holders (collectively known as EPA Drug Initiative II) moved to intervene in the lawsuit and asked the court
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. These torrent download statistics are meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources. This week we have three new entries in the list. “Black Widow” is the most downloaded title.
With the Olympic Games underway in Tokyo, Erik shares the decathlon of trademark protection – 10 steps to building a strong, protected brand name. The post The Trademark Protection Decathlon appeared first on Erik M Pelton & Associates, PLLC. With the Olympic Games underway in Tokyo, Erik shares the decathlon of trademark protection – 10 steps to building a strong, protected brand name.
Photo by Joshua Hanson (Unsplash). Shawn Dhue is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. . Powerful. Bold. Influential. These are just some of the words that Hadiya Roderique ’s Black on Bay Street self portrait emphasizes for a first-generation Black law student like myself. You can only imagine how much an organization could profit from using those photos for a fundraising campaign for Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC).
Three years ago a group of prominent music companies took two of the largest YouTube rippers to court. The labels, including Universal, Warner Bros, and Sony, accused FLVTO.biz, 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov of facilitating copyright infringement. While many foreign site operators choose not to fight back, Kurbanov did. With help from a seasoned legal team, he filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that US courts don’t have jurisdiction over a Russian site operator who conducts
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