mcafee

John McAfee, founder of McAfee anti-virus fame, contributed or sold various assets to McAfee Associates. He alleges that he did not contribute or sell ‘his personal name’ to the company. The company certainly owned registrations that included the MCAFEE element. McAfee Associates was ultimately sold to Intel. Intel allegedly abandoned the MCAFEE trademark in 2014. John McAfee now wishes to work for a company that will be named John McAfee Global Technologies, which will perform services in the cyber-security field. Intel had protested, alleging that it owns the MCAFEE trademark (paragraph 26 of the complaint is puzzling as it seems to allege that Intel has ceased using the MCAFEE trademark, given Intel’s use of the mark at, for example, www.McAfee.com).

The Joseph Abboud case is a good place to start when contemplating to what extent one may use one’s own name (if one allegedly assigned away the trademark rights).

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Car-Fresher sells Little Trees car fresheners. Sun Cedar is a Kansas not-for-profit founded to provide jobs for the at-risk population. It sells, among other things, cedar tree-shaped cedar wood ornaments.

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The Federal Election Committee prohibits political committees that are not authorized by a candidate, to use that candidate’s name in the titles of their websites and social media pages. a PAC named Pursuing America’s Greatness, challenged the prohibition arguing that the name prohibition was unconstitutional, as it was a content-based restriction.

Held: As a content-based regulation, the prohibition did not consider whether more narrow means could be used to prevent voter confusion, such as disclaimers.

43(b)log notes that this argument possibly be applied to trademark infringement as well.

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Alibaba successfully dismisses Gucci’s claim that Alibaba participated in a conspiracy with counterfeiters to sell counterfeit goods on Alibaba. That the merchants may have resulted in an ‘online retail cluster’ that benefited each other from some sort of network effect, did not rise to a ‘hub and spokes’ RICO conspiracy.

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Wilson v Perrell: Memo of law in support of motion to dismiss copyright ownership claim. The statute of limitations for copyright infringement is rolling; the statute of limitations for a dispute over copyright ownership is three years.

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914inc

914INC., Westchester’s business magazine, saluted Leason Ellis for general excellence as a small business. Pictured below are Mel Garner (the go-to grey hair around here), Dr. Susie Cheng, one of the scary smart people here who do pharma and biologics patents, Karin Segall, with whom I have intense conversations about coexistence agreements and the doctrine of foreign equivalents, and a bearded man claiming to be David Leason. Scroll down to read the blurb.

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Plaintiff may bring Rico and Fraud claims. Trump seems to need to thread a needle. He has to argue that he is insufficiently involved with Trump University to avoid RICO liability but sufficiently involved to support the claims in the marketing materials (i.e. ‘handpicked instructors’).

What do people understand ‘University’ to mean when enrolling in this sort of ‘school’?

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Del_Monte_logo.svg

There are two Del Montes, Del Monte Foods and Fresh Del Monte Produce. (some background here and here) I tend to use the DEL MONTE trademark as a cautionary tale in drafting coexistence agreements. To oversimplify: there was an agreement to split use of the DELMONTE trademark by the two companies between fresh produce and prepared/refrigerated produce. Then along came chilled fruit in a cup: fresh or prepared? Too many trademark suits between the DelMontes to link to here. The other source of contention: new forms of media that allows for only one owner: does either side have a better ‘right’ to the TLD .DelMonte?

Here, the Ninth Circuit rules that once ICANN awarded the TLD to one of the DelMontes, ICANN cannot be enjoined from awarding the TLD. Where the activities sought to be enjoined have already occurred, the appellate courts cannot undo what has already been done.

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