Great title for company press release: TOMMY BAHAMA Helps Crack Counterfeiting Ring.

CNN.COM reports:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would increase jail time for identity thieves and Web users who register sites under false identities.

The bill, which passed by voice vote, would not directly outlaw the use of fraudulent registration information.

Rather, it would increase by up to seven years the prison terms of those convicted of felonies.

Full story here. 

NY Lawyer reports that the Southern District Court of NY has issued interlocutory rulings allowing trial as to whether Kryptonite Locks exceeded coexistence agreement with DC Comics, makers of the element Kryptonite (substance used to remove powers of people from the planet Krypton).  CEO of DC Comics’ Kryptonite division depicted above.

Counterfeiting in Manchester, via Manchester Online.

NY Times article on ‘phishing’ and other bad email things, noting that brands such as VIAGRA, EBAY and CITIBANK are severely curtailed in their ability to use email at this time, because those marks are so heavily utilized in fraudulent email.

Trouble follows her.  Rosie O’Donnell purchased drawings made of her by courtroom artists during her lawsuit last year (background).  Now the courtroom artists allege that O’Donnell is passing off the sketches as her own artwork.  Via cnn.com.

Volokh explores the legality of forging documents for political purposes and finds few laws on point (clearly forging documents for commercial gain would break all kinds of laws – as would forging documents as part of a recognized tort, such as slander).  As occurred to me during the Swift Boat Veteran debacle, we are better protected against lies about toothpaste and cat litter, then we are against lies about (and by) our government (and about reasons for going to war for that matter).

Simon Cowell and others will harshly judge contestants.  No, not on American Idol, on The X Factor on ITV1 in England.   The creator of American Idol (and its UK basis, Pop Idol), is suing Cowell in the UK

I put in a call to the IPKat who reports that protection of a TV format is difficult in the UK.  Copyright protects works, not formats while trademarks protects registrable signs, so there’s a hole where TV formats would go.  We tend to call that hole “unfair competition and related state torts” here.