This could be an important story for brand professionals. County star Luke Combs won a $250K copyright judgment against an ailing fan. Now, the fan says she didn’t know about the suit (sic), and he says he didn’t know about the suit (sic)
If you’ve been following U.S. TM and copyright litigation trends, then you
2023
Text of Decision in Vans v MSCHF: Citing BAD SPANIELS, Second Circuit upholds preliminary injunction of MSCHF Wavy Baby Shoe

From the decision:
The main issues in this appeal are governed by the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 599 U.S. 140 (2023). Applying Jack Daniel’s, we conclude that Vans is likely to prevail in arguing that MSCHF’s Wavy Baby shoes used Vans’ marks…
AI Litigation List
Photoplaza v Herbal Brands: cert petition from Ninth Cir. re personal jurisdiction over Amazon resellers in TM case
Question presented:
Whether a seller whose products ship nationwide is
subject to personal jurisdiction in every forum into which
even one of its products is shipped.
Factual background from petition:
Respondent is a Delaware corporation with its principal
place of business in Arizona and is in the business of
selling health and wellness …
Latham brings in rem action in EDVA against 38 “LW”-variant domain names used to scam clients
From the complaint:
An unknown scammer has maliciously used the Abusive Domain Names in violation of Latham’s trademark rights to unlawfully, and in bad faith, derive a profit by defrauding members of the public. In the…
Resources from Conners Inn CLE on “Sorting the Real From The Fake” – IP Issues and AI
Our Powerpoint “Sorting the Real From the Fake” – Mel Gardner and Marty Schwimmer
Slides from our presentation “Sorting the Real from the Fake” – Conners Inn CLE
Google Research Explains Test-to-Image Technology
Matt Sag article on Copyright Safety for Generative AI
Recent cases:
·Silverman et al v. OpenAI, Inc.
Can a Takedown Notice Expose A Trademark Owner to a Defamation Suit?
We had a successful result for a defendant in a pretty interesting case.
Can a take-down notice sent to an ecommerce site such as eBay or Amazon expose the IP rights-owner to a defamation suit? Yes (or No), says a New York federal judge (in two different cases). The two decisions (Unlimited Cellular v.
Pom Wonderful Trade Dress Suit Dismissed at 12b6 – SDNY

Judges tend not to go thru a full likelihood-of-confusion analysis at 12b6 but here you are.
The Court found that the WONDERFUL packaging and Defendant’s packaging do not possess “striking similarity” (sic). The Court notes that while their were similarities . . .

The handling of the third factor, channels of trade was a bit…
SDNY: Justiciable Controversy over Brazilian Bum Bum Cream

Apollo Health and Beauty Care Inc. v. Sol De Janeiro USA Inc. et al, No. 1:2022cv07719 – Document 65 (S.D.N.Y. 2023):

Text of Complaint in X Corp v. Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in CD Cal, regarding not-for-profit’s reports on Twitter disinformation policies
The Center for Countering Digital Hate is a not for profit organization that publishes reports on among other things, hate speech and disinformation on social media. Its reports contain the “big if true” allegations that a small number of social media accounts, such as Twitter, are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of objectionable conduct. For…