US Supreme Court Rules on Two Copyright Issues This week, the Supreme Court of the United States issued two decisions with major implications for copyright litigation. As you may know, even though your work is automatically copyrighted once it's fixed in a tangible form, the copyright statute says that, other than for certain very limited exceptions, you can't sue until [...]
Trademark Use-in-Commerce Audits The most valuable asset a business has is its trademark. Trademarks are the core of the modern concept of branding, and they are used to identify the business. In order to register your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), you must be using that mark "in commerce." Although you can apply for registration before [...]
Employee Background Checks Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that an employer violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which requires employers to provide certain disclosure documents to applicants before running any background checks, when it included information about state background-check laws in the same document as the FCRA disclosure. The court found [...]
In 2012, Ted Schroeder sued Pinterest, alleging that his former angel investor and business partner Brian Cohen had stolen the idea for a socially networked "bulletin board" on the internet from Schroeder and given that idea, along with other trade secret information, to Pinterest's founders in 2009. Unfortunately for Schroeder, the court dismissed the case, finding that his alleged trade [...]
Adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels, who became a household name after The Wall Street Journal reported that she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about her alleged sexual relationship with Donald Trump, wrote an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, arguing that legislation should be passed to overturn last year's Dynamex decision by the California Supreme Court. That decision [...]
Some people believe that intellectual property laws don't really apply on the internet but, as a recent case reminds us, that's not true.* While attending his friend's wedding at the Trump National Golf Club, Jonathon Otto caught sight of an uninvited guest. He pulled out his iPhone and snapped a photo of the wedding crasher - President Trump - with [...]
Some of you may know you have common law rights in your protectable trademarks just by using those marks in interstate or foreign commerce, so you might wonder why you should pay for a trademark registration.Protection from CybersquattersWhile there are numerous reasons to register your mark as soon as possible, one of the more significant is that it's much easier [...]
The Right of Employees to Share Compensation Information The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently confirmed that, although it has become more employer-friendly under the current administration, its position about employees having the right to discuss their "terms and conditions of employment" with one another, including their pay rate and benefits, has not changed. These rights apply to both unionized [...]
US Supreme Court to Consider Registration of Vulgar Trademarks The US Patent & Trademark Office ("PTO") refused to register the mark FUCT for use in connection with clothing based on the obvious similarities with the "F-word," because Section 2(a) of the federal Trademark Act provides that registration can be denied to any mark that "Consists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, [...]
This year, New Year's Day brought more than resolutions, football games and hangovers: on January 1st, an unprecedented number of works previously protected by copyright entered the public domain. The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act added an additional 20 years to existing copyrights, so although works first published in 1922 entered the public domain in 1998, it is [...]
