FTC Increasing Enforcement Related to Deceptive Reviews and Endorsements The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced its intention to crack down on fake online reviews and other deceptive endorsements. In fact, it sent Notices of Penalty Offenses to more than 700 companies. A recipient that engages in the conduct described in the notice may be subject to civil penalties of [...]
Litigation is always a stressful, time-consuming, slow, and expensive way to resolve a dispute, but the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed this already lengthy process. Courts and lawyers are overloaded with work related to the deferred hearings, pleadings, discovery, and trials. It will probably be years before the backlog is cleared. This means that if you have a dispute with someone—whether [...]
Late last month, the EEOC updated its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to include a new section discussing religious objections to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. These guidelines specify that to request a religious exception to a COVID-19 vaccination requirement, the employee is not required to use any “magic words.” Employees do, however, need to notify their employers that there is a conflict [...]
Scream Late last month, Charlotte Hornets guard Terry Rozier won a lawsuit over similarities between Rozier’s “Scary Terry” clothing line and the “ghost face” mask used in the 1996 film Scream. Easter Unlimited, a costume company that manufactures the ghost face mask and had granted Dimension Films a license to use the mask in Scream, sued Rozier in 2018 for [...]
Nearly every business has some form of intellectual property (IP). While it is an intangible asset, in many cases intellectual property is more valuable than tangible assets such as equipment and inventory. Copyrights Copyright protects original creative works, such as artwork, literary works, musical and dramatic works, software, sound recordings and motion pictures. Although a protectible work is automatically copyrighted [...]
The IRS recently reminded business owners of the importance of properly classifying its workers as employees or independent contractors. Businesses often prefer to characterize their workers as independent contractors rather than as employees, since independent contractors are responsible for their own taxes, including FICA, and are not subject to many of the laws protecting employees, such as wage and hour [...]
Our office has recently received a number of scam trademark and corporate notices through the US Postal Service, a reminder that you should always read what appear to be official notices extremely carefully. Scam requests typically look like invoices or letters, often containing false due dates or threats about loss of rights if you do not send payment now. Sometimes [...]
To be protectable, a trademark must be “distinctive.” This means it must be used to identify the source of the product or service. Courts classify marks into categories of distinctiveness. The most distinctive marks are those that are arbitrary or fanciful. Examples include EXXON for gasoline and APPLE for electronics. Suggestive marks, those that require some imagination to determine the [...]
Social media use is so common that most of us don’t give it a second thought, but there are certain legal restrictions that apply. For example, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has guidelines for social media influencers clarifying when and how influencers must disclose sponsorships to their followers. A social media influencer is someone with a dedicated group of followers [...]
You may have heard there’s no need to register your copyright, because it’s automatically protected. But this is only half the story—you can’t enforce your copyright without either a certificate of registration or a denial of registration from the Copyright Office. Plus, there are a lot of reasons to register all of your copyrights promptly. 1. If you register a [...]
