Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Copyright Protection Period

From Lasercomb v. Reynolds, 911 F.2d 970, 975 (4th Cir. 1990):

In Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 219, 74 S.Ct. 460, 471, 98 L.Ed. 630 (1953), the Supreme Court stated:

The economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant patents and copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors and inventors in "Science and useful Arts." Sacrificial days devoted to such creative activities deserve rewards commensurate with the services rendered.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Liberal Comedian Sues Blogger To Supress Free Speach

Over at MNspeak.com, a blogger selling "A Prarie Ho Companion" tee-shirts got hit with a cease & desist letter from Garrison Keillor's attorney.

It's free speach, so long as you agree with me, and aren't making fun of me!

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

In Peaceable Planet, Inc. v. TY, Inc., 362 F.3d 986, Judge Posner distinguishes the personal-name rule from a trademark infringement action brought by the maker of a plush camel named Niles:
In thinking about the applicability of the rationale of the personal-name rule to the present case, we should notice first of all that camels, whether real or toy, do not go into business. Peaceable Planet's appropriation of the name “Niles” for its camel is not preventing some hapless camel in the Sahara Desert who happens to be named “Niles” from going into the water-carrier business under its own name. The second thing to notice is that “Niles” is not a very common name; in fact it is downright rare. And the third thing to notice is that if it were a common name, still there would be no danger that precluding our hypothetical Saharan water carrier from using its birth name “Niles” would deprive that camel's customers of valuable information. In short, the rationale of the personal-name rule is wholly inapplicable to this case.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Courtblogging (day 2)

Day 2 of the "trial.". Yesterday afternoon we got through an hour of jury selection before we had to adjourn for the judge to hear another motion.

This morning's jury selection only went about 45 minutes before both sides agreed to 12 folks. It was at this point everything came to a screeching halt, when a jury member raised his hand to tell the judge he hadn't been sworned in. The rest of the jury chimed in that they hadn't been given an oath.

The judge was fuming at this point and sent the jury away. A few minutes later the judge had the jury clerk state she "didn't remember whether she swore in the jury.". The judge then had each and every juror member state that they hadn't been sworn in, which refreshed the jury clerk's memory- thne she remembered she hadn't sworn in the jurors yesterday.

I didn't think it was a huge deal in our case, since we hadn't even gotten to opening statements. Word is though that an un-sworn jury had already heard evidence in a criminal trial downstairs. They'll probably face a mis-trial, but hopefully we can avoid that fate.

It's been over an hour since the judge left, and there is no end in sight- much less the start of the trial. Now everyone is starting to consider the possibility of the trial spreading to Friday, or even Monday.

***

And several hours later the possibility of the trial spreading beyond the first failed voir dire evaporated within a few hours of settlement negotiations that essentially took place in the court room.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Now that would have come in handy.

Sadly, I did not have Legally Intoxicated's guide to the scope of Article 9 on my Secured Transactions test.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Patent Reform

The Washington Post reports on efforts at Patent Reform.

Monday, April 25, 2005

A former 1L professor of mine, Jennifer Collins, is guestblogging at Prawflsblawg.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

No, really, I'm not here. (Smackdown)

In McFarland v. Brier, 769 A.2d 605 (R.I. 2001), The Supreme Court reviewed a judgment for the plaintiffs, who alleged misappropriation of trade secrets amongst other charges. The defendant's behavior was less than exemplary:

In the weeks that followed Bibeau's departure from R&L, McFarland was informed by his customers that CSI was soliticing their business by submitting bids for the same products sold by R&L. Not only were Brier and Bibeau targeting R&L's customers, they also were trying to recruit R&L sales representatives. A witness described a meeting attended by both Brier and Bibeau, who were attempting to lure a long-time R&L sales representative away from R&L to work for CSI. The witness was warned that if she ever was questioned about the meeting, that Bibeau was in fact "not present" at the meeting. It was explained to her that beacuse of a noncompetition agreement that he signed with R&L, Bibeau could not own or be associated with a company that competed with R&L. Bibeau then assured the witness that he possessed all of R&L's computer programs, as well as the customer information necessary to complete with R&L.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court goes on to hold that the UTSA expressly provides for exemplary damages for willful and malicious appropriation, like the action of the defendants here:

"Under the facts of this case, we are satisfied that if ever egregious misconduct deserving of punitive damages has occurred, this is such a case."

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Shady Records, Inc.

Not so much funny, as mildly interesting: Southern District of New York denies both parties summary judgment in Shady Records, Inc. v. Source Enterprises, Inc., WL 14920 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).

"The events central to this case span a fifteen-year period, and a geographic distance of similar scope, from the basements of Detroit to the upper echelons of hip-hop society in New York City....

The Source Parties [aka Source Magazine] have been vocal critics of [Marshall] Mathers [aka Eminem], and have used their magazine as a vehicle for challenging his authenticity as a white hip-hop artist in a genre created and dominated by African Americans. Having come into possession of two songs recorded by Mathers featuring crude racist invective denigrating women of color, the Source Parties eagerly publicized the recordings as substantiating their critique of Mathers as a racist profiteer, exploiting black culture for financial gain. The resulting overlitigation of the case serves to obscure what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward dispute as to whether the Source Parties can claim a legitimate fair use defense that Shady's copyrighted materials were used in the interest of disclosing a newsworthy matter. The Court finds that this issue, practically alone of all of the issues raised by the parties in their motions for summary judgment, presents genuine issues of material fact that must await ultimate determination at trial."

Blogger Bloggerson

On being able to copyright phonebook listings:

"An Icelandic white pages listing is original. Traditional names and the uses of patronyms and matronyms result in many identical names. A substantial portion of the male population is named Magnus Magnusson. So to identify subscribers, Icelandic phone books often include creatively chosen personal information (Magnus Magnusson, the golfing fan, drives an old Volkswagen beetle.)"

-Intellectual Property Examples & Explanations, p. 12.

Monday, April 18, 2005

McPost

In Quality Inns International, Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., 695 F.Supp.198 (Md. 1988), Quality Inns sought a declaratory judgment that they could name a new chain of hotels "McSleep Inn." McDonald's Corporation argued trademark infringement. Quality Inns raised a generic defense that the prefix "Mc" has derived a singular meaning and become part of the language. Quality Inns offered evidence which reviewed journalistic use of the prefix "Mc" for purposes of deriving its meaning and to evidence its common usage. The court took notice of several examples, including:

"A news report placed into evidence referred to the trial before this court as taking place in the McCourt, which, of course, would make the judge the McJudge. While the Court understood that association with the Courthouse in Baltimore, it oculd not come to grips with the suggestion tha the trial was before a McJudge. The Court could find few, if any, of the attributes of "Mc" used by McDonald's or by the journalists otherwise to fit. Perhaps this McPinion will fulfill that prophecy."

The McCourt went on to hold that the "attribution of source to McDonald's in the use of "Mc" is strong and persists," and rejected "any contention that McDonald's has lost its right to enforce its marks because "Mc" has become a prefix with a single meaning that has become part of the English language and beyond McDonald's control."

Because he's laying it on pretty thick

IDX Systems Corporation v. Epic Systems Corporation, 285 F.3d 581 (7th 2002).

"According to IDX, "a 43 pages description of the methods and processes underlying and the inter-relationships among various features making up IDX's software package" is specific enough. No, it isn't....

Other details, such as the algorithms that the software usese to do real-time erro checking (a vaunted feature of IDX's software), may be genuine trade secrets, but IDX has not tired to separate them from elements such as its input and output formats."

Thursday, April 14, 2005

No, deductions do not begin at conception.

In Cassman v. U.S., 31 Fed.Cl. 121 (Fed. Cl. 1994), Plaintiffs were denied a 'dependent' tax deduction for an unborn child:

Plaintiffs argue that Jonathan Cassman was a resident of the United States prior to his birth because his mother was a resident, and they ask the court ot take judicial notice of the fact that it would have been physically impossible for the mother to be a resident and her unborn child not to be a resident. This argument is without merit. The court cannot justify viewing an unborn child as "residing" anywhere.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

We Officially Suck.com

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Wallmartcanadasucks.com (http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000-1104.html), Wal-Mart sued the operator of Wallmartcanadasucks.com, claiming trademark infringement.

As in Bally, there is little likelihood that Wal-Mart will extend its business to operate an official anti Wal-Mart site.