Thompson and Thompson has agreed to purchase Information Holdings Inc., owner of search service Trademark.com and IP management software Master Data.  Via AP.

Fourth Circuit: Copyright owner’s claims against ISP for direct infringement dismissed, as ISP would have to commit volitional acts to be liable for direct, as opposed to indirect infringement.

CoStar v. LoopNet, 03-1991 (Fourth Circuit,  June 21, 2004).

Federal Circuit: PATENTS.COM held to be merely descriptive of and not inherently registrable for software for tracking patents.

In re Oppedahl, 03-1525 (Fed Cir  June 25, 2004) via Finnegan Henderson.

Olsen twins sue Acclaim over video game royalties, via Celebrity Justice (Celebrity Justice?).

International Society for Twin Studies here.

Artist Thomas Forsythe photographed BARBIE dolls to make an artistic point.  Mattel sued him and lost.  A District Court judge has now held that the parodic character of the work should have been clear to Mattel, whom he characterized as a ‘sophisticated entity with access to good legal rerpesentation.’  Accordingly, Mattel’s copyright claim…

I foolishly spent 4 years in Cambridge to get my Harvard degree (there, I was able to work it into the conversation again) when I could merely have gone to FAKE DEGREES and get what I am going to guess is an unauthorized reproduction of a Harvard (or any other college) degree.

Al Franken on…

BBC article on trademark counterfeiting problems in the UK.

Someone spams AOL users using (or purporting to use) the shared hosting service I use for my email.  AOL responds by stopping ALL email from ANY user of the hosting service.  I can’t send any business email to AOL addresses for two days.

Discuss my rights.