A recent survey shows that small businesses are much less likely than their larger counterparts to have formal sexual harassment policies, making them much more vulnerable to claims of sexual harassment. Regardless of size, all employers should have appropriate written sexual harassment policies and training procedures (including classes, videos, and the like) in place. While the applicable federal law applies [...]
Some of our clients have received invoices and "important notifications" from companies offering to monitor or renew their trademarks and/or record their trademark registrations with US Customs & Border Protection (USCBP). One invoice, from Glotrade s.r.o., offers a "similarity service that protects your trademark from copyright infringement" for one year for the price of $2,890. This incomprehensible sentence, which confuses [...]
A book's title is not protected by US copyright law, but it can sometimes be protected by trademark law. A title of a single work may be protected if the owner can prove that consumers associate it with a particular source, but only a title used for a series of works (two or more) can be registered with the US Patent and [...]
This week it was announced that 21st Century Fox has settled a group of race, gender and pregnancy discrimination lawsuits involving 18 current and former Fox News employees for approximately $10 million. In just the past few weeks, a number of other employment discrimination claims have been settled by major employers, including Dell EMC (a subsidiary of Dell Technologies), which [...]
Choosing a trademark may be more difficult than you think. You might be focusing on the catchiness of the name, but there are legal considerations that should be considered as well, such as the possibility of infringing some other trademark. People often think that if they aren't aware of anyone else using the same trademark, it's okay. They may rely on a [...]
Thousands of freelance writers are finally receiving compensation for copyright infringement by newspaper, magazine, and electronic database publishers during the early days of the internet. In 2001, a number of lawsuits were consolidated into one class action suit (known as In re Literary Works in Elec. Databases Copyright Litig.) on behalf of freelance writers. The dispute arose when publishers licensed articles [...]
Did you know that your failure to retain all relevant materials after litigation is "reasonably anticipated" could result in you losing the lawsuit or being fined or sanctioned by the court? In fact, earlier this year, a New York federal judge awarded $2.68 million in discovery sanctions in a case valued at only $20,000. Klipsch Group had sued DealExtreme (part [...]
Whether you're an employer or an employee, you'll want to be aware of your state's laws about when paychecks must be delivered and how payment can be legally made. It is especially important that you know the rules for final paychecks, because failure to comply with applicable laws may result in an employer being ordered to pay the former employee not only all wages [...]
Three years ago, a jury awarded Marvin Gaye's family more than $7.3 million for copyright infringement. The jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams' 2013 hit "Blurred Lines" had too closely copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give It Up." Thicke and Williams appealed, arguing, among other things, that there is no similarity between the two songs. The [...]
You may have read that a court ruled that Google has not lost trademark protection for its GOOGLE trademark despite the frequent use of "google" as a verb that means to search the internet. So does this mean it's okay for you to use your trademark as a verb or a noun? No. Doing so would be risky, because when [...]