BrandChannel on non-conventional trademarks (sight, sound, smell).
Copyright Analysis of Data Harvesting.
Accusing a website of infringing your copyright when it is merely harvesting data (using software to extract data (such as pricing) from a website), may constitute defamation. A jury awarded $250,000 to the defamed data harvester. Via By No Other blog.
The findings of facts in hte matter, via BNA, is a useful analysis of
EEC Decision on Three-Dimensional Marks
Opinion of the Advocate General in Henkel v. OHIM and Procter and Gamble v. OHIM, rejecting the registrability of three-dimensional trademarks, in this case tablets of compressed laundry detergent.
More EEC news here via IPKAT.
Peninsula Hotel v. Peninsula Hotel
This article reports that the Chinese state-owned power company has built a replica of Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel (including use of the PENINSULA name and logo) in Yichang, in the Three Gorges area. The Peninsula Hotel Group has a hotel in Beijing.
Book your stay at the Beijing Peninsula here.
More on the Yichang Peninsula
Google Sued in France by AXA Over Keyword Sales
Insurance giant AXA has sued Google in France over its sale of keywords. This article does not identify which keywords are in dispute.
Second Circuit Copyright Fair Use re 'Purloined' Materials
Plaintiff provides seminars promoting its executive leadership methodology. Seminar participants received a copyrighted manual, and sign a non-dsclosure agreement. Defendants operate a website and publish materials as professional ‘de-programmers’ They obtained the manual from a former seminar customer, and published a critique, leading to published reports that plaintiff was a cult. Plaintiff sued for
Adware: What Didn't They Know and When Didn't They Know It?
Do po-up ads cause consumer confusion? Let’s say a computer user is viewing the website of Superior Morgage Broker Services, and a window appears advertising say, Vanguard Mortgage Broker Services. Whether the user is confused as to some conection between the services advertised in the main window and the identical services advertised in the pop-up
Litigation As A Company's Most Promising Growth Area
As an IP lawyer I should be cheered by this CNN.COM story about SCO and its fight against Linux (background here), however when reading this quote from an embittered SCO investor who believes:
“. . . SCO needs to hire executives with more savvy about intellectual property cases and spend less money on its Unix
Pepsi? Why Not Try A Coke?
Odd: The operator of the RUGLES.COM blog put RUNNING SHOES into Google and received the prompts depicted above, including DID YOU MEAN NIKE RUNNING SHOES and several other prompts identifying brand names.
It’s a good thing Rugles took the screen shot above because no one can reproduce the results, suggesting that Google might have been
Pert Nose, Bow Lips and Large Widely Spaced Eye Decision from 2d Circuit
Although “. . . pert noses, bow lips and large widely space eyes are standard doll features,” Ideal Toy Corp. v. Fab-Lu Ltd., 360 F.2d 1021 (2d Cir. 1966), someone’s particularized expression of pert noses, bow lips and large widely spaced eyes (such as that of the Barbie doll), may be protectable. The Court did