A Danish Band, Aqua, released a song named “Barbie Girl,” the lyrics of which would likely have been forgotten, but now, thanks to this lawsuit, will be reprinted in F.3d. The characters in the song are named Barbie and Ken and the chorus is:
I’m a Barbie Girl, in my Barbie world, Life in plastic…
The Ninth Circuit in Mattel, noting that song titles tend not to be perceived as designating origin, finds that “. . . upon hearing Janis Joplin croon ‘Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?’ would we suspect that she and the carmaker had entered into a joint venture.” Sure, baby boomers aware of…
Until today I have never laughed out loud while reading a Ninth Circuit Opinion. This is the last paragraph of Mattel v. MCA (discussed above):
“MCA filed a counterclaim for defamation based on the Mattel representative’s use of the words “bank robber,” “heist,” “crime” and “theft.” But all of these are variants of the invective…
By pointing out that articles like this basically favorable Washington Post column about bloggers (and the underlying US News piece the Post basically blogged) should have had links to the blogs discussed(ok, the US News piece had one blink – that’s a link to a blog).
I became aware of a dispute regarding metsonline.net through Dave via Ernie. Apparently, Major League Baseball has apparently sent a demand letter to a guy who is running a Mets fan site. Ernie asked me for my two cents.
Just to qualify myself as an expert, I should point out that I grew up…
If owners of the world’s 10 most valuable brands approached trademark lawyers today to clear those marks, doctrinaire lawyers might advise them to avoid over half of them.
Interbrand and Businessweek have come out with their annual discussion of the world’s most valuable brands. One canon of trademark law is that there is a…
CoreBrand is a branding consultancy. This is its list of the best-known corporate brands. Coca-Cola was number one. I was not able to correctly guess the runner-up.
The text of the bill authorizing spoofing and other activities designed to prevent the distribution of unauthorized works on a peer to peer network is available on the Politech site here. Interesting – the copyright owner has to notify the Department of Justice 7 days in advance of taking action.
Further to my July 11 blurb on spoofing, the practice of intentionally uploading defective files onto peer to peer networks, with the purpose of discouraging use of those networks, this siliconvalley.internet.com article reports that a bill was ‘sent’ to Congress today legalizing that and other practices.
SKELETOR, evil lord of destruction, battles He-Man to be a Master of the Universe. Mattel likely coined the name twenty years ago. It’s a fair inference that when a third party registered skeletor.com, he was aware of Mattel’s rights in the name. This UDRP decision for registrant shows however, that complainant’s lawyer has to do…