In this NY Times article on the hiring of Barbara Kolsun, former chairwoman of the board of the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition, as Sr. VP and General counsel of handbag maker KATE SPADE, there is a discussion of “purse parties,” where suburban housewives gather to purchase knock-off handbags.  They sell knock-off handbags in the lobby of my son’s pre-school, and I ‘m afraid that if I send a demand letter on behalf of a client, they won’t give my son a good letter of referral  for kindergarten. (Online subscription req. for nytimes.com).

I have been Googling phone numbers for a variety of reasons for quite some time but I only recently learned via Icann Blog that when you Google some phone numbers, you will immediately get an opportunity to get a map of the location of the phone number via Yahoo Maps or MapQuest.  Great when you’re looking for an infringer or a Chinese restuarant, not as great when it’s someone else Googling your phone number.

Nartron’s complaint that STMicroelectronics infringed its SMART POWER trademark for electrical relay assemblies and electrical power circuits in combination with electrical logic circuits is dismissed by Sixth Circuit, on the grounds that (1) SMART POWER is a generic term for technology that combines power transistors and control circuitry on a single integrated circuit and (2) Nartron took too long to sue, having first learned of defendant’s use of the term in 1987.  Good discussion of how to plead genericness and how not to plead “successive encroachment” as a defense to laches.