Law.com article on IP issues in Sports including the koan: who owns a player’s statistics?

This is not about trademark law, it’s about politics and the blogosphere.

To over-simplify, a thesis of the book “What Is the Matter With Kansas” is that blue-collar voters in this country are duped over and over again by the Republican party.  The candidates campaign on ‘values’ (this time around, gay marriage), but they govern on behalf of big business, whose interests are often adverse to blue-collar ‘values voters.’

The Senate has passed a bill on bankruptcy reform.  The bill has been described as a bill written for and by the credit card industry, and will increase the power of credit companies to collect debt, while reducing remedies to those in financial distress.

I have three questions:

1.  Is the characterization of the bill as pro-credit card company, anti-blue collar, an accurate one?

2.  Why has the blogosphere been fairly silent on this?  It’s precisely this type of issue where blogging lawyers can educate folk like me (I’ve seen this post and little else).

3.  Does this bill prove the ‘Kansas as Republican Dupe’ theory?

UPDATE:  Here’s a blog devoted to the Bankruptcy Bill.

Our Israeli trademark and copyright lawyer friend Ellen, writes to report:

“In a surprising and controversial ruling likely to be appealed, Israel Tel Aviv District Court held that a commercial website that copies job opportunity listings from the classified ads of major Israel newspapers, does not violate any copyright held by the newspapers.  Judge Zaft told the newspapers that they have to learn to “cope” with existing alongside the Internet.  The Court’s decision allows AllJobs to continue to charge monthly subscriber fee for collating and distributing job ads culled from other major newspapers.  The Court, focusing on the good of the advertisers, stated that the notices belong to the advertisers — who desire greater exposure — and not to the newspaper, and that there is “no copyright in information”.

As to the maxim that advertisers desire greater exposure, it’s true some of the time, and not true if the advertiser doesn’t want to field voluminous ‘unqualified’ responses. 

Here is a discussion from the Newspaper Association of America discussing various theories of protection of classifed ads under U.S. law.

The European Communties Trademark Association will be holding its 24th Annual Conference, in London, on “The Development of Trademark Rights, Designs and Related Rights in Europe”, June 8 to 11.  IPKat fans will note that Jeremy Phillips will present.  The program is here.  Early bird registration deadline is Tuesday!

I blogged previously on the Southern District Court of New York decision in the COHIBA cse, wherein the Court held that the Cuban plaintiff had protectable trademark rights in the COHIBA mark in the U.S. after it showed evidence that its reputation here met the standard under Article 6bis of the Paris Convention for protection as a famous mark.

The Second Circuit has now reversed the District Court holding in Empresa Cubana v. Culbro, 04-2527 (2d Cir Feb 25 2005).  It does not reach the issue as to whether plaintiff’s mark is famous in the U.S. but instead holds that plaintiff, as a Cuban entity, cannot obtain property, that is to say protectable U.S. trademark rights, under the embargo against Cuba.  Thus the claims are dismissed.

This case may be correct on the law but raises concerns.

First, assuming that the lower court’s factual holding that COHIBA is a famous mark in the U.S. is correct, the outcome appears to serve neither the purpose of the embargo nor of the Lanham Act. 

Plaintiff was not seeking the right to use the COHIBA mark in the U.S., only to prevent defendant from using it.  Such an injunction would not bolster the Cuban economy in any meaningful way.  In the meanwhile, the U.S. consumer, presumably aware of the famous Cuban COHIBA mark, will be exposed to defendant’s COHIBA product (that had been marketed at times using Cuban imagery).

Second, there is the issue of equal treatment.  U.S. trademark owners have received the protection of foreign courts not only in the ‘reputation without use’ scenario (see my previous post) but even when external political forces may have prevented the trademark owner from satisfying local conditions otherwise necessary for protection under law.  For example McDonalds was able to protect its mark in South Africa against an interloper during McDonald’s non-use during the apartheid sanction period. 

Then there is the issue of retaliation.  Cuba has certainly appropriated the assets of Cuban businesses, which appropriations led to trademark conflict outside Cuba (such as the HAVANA CLUB matter).  However with regard to Cuban protection of U.S. famous marks, on paper at least, Cuba now offers greater protection to U.S. marks than the other way around.  Cuba is an adherent to the Paris Convention and, in theory, would grant 6bis protection to U.S. famous trademark holders (I would be interested from hearing from anyone who has instructed a 6bis action in Cuba – I came close once but the client changed its mind ). Furthermore, U.S. entities may obtain Cuban trademark protection despite the embargo (although not all owners of famous marks do so). 

Some day Castro will fall off the world’s stage.  We may at that time normalize trade relations with Cuba.  From a policy perspective, the U.S. would perhaps be better off until then if there was a no-use truce of the other country’s marks.  I think we lose out if there’s a free-for-all until then.

SearchEngineWatch review of VisioBrand, a directory of brands.

SearchBlog on keyword prices and click fraud.

Today’s emerging issue: legal treatment of blogs linking to political candidate websites (as in does linking to a candidate’s website constitute a (regulable) political contribution).  Tempest set off by News.com article here; Instapundit compilation of links here.