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 [...]
One of the most valuable assets a business has may be its trade secrets, and most businesses have them. Trade secrets include, among other things, customer lists, supplier lists, secret formulas, processes and the like. In order for an item to be considered a trade secret, it must be both kept confidential and provide the business with a commercial advantage. [...]
Con artists posing as IRS agents or collection agencies working for the IRS continue to make telephone calls and send snail mail and email letters in an attempt to scam money from unsuspecting taxpayers. These unscrupulous individuals typically accuse their targets of tax fraud and threaten them with arrest, deportation, and/or revocation of their drivers' or business licenses if they [...]
The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) just announced a pilot program designed to fight the filing of fraudulent specimens with trademark applications. In this context, a "specimen" is a "real-life sample" of how a trademark is used in the marketplace. In other words, it's what consumers see when they're actually buying goods and services. For example, the mark might [...]