This week I was pleased to present another Intellectual Property Workshop for SCORE. My presentation usually covers Copyright and Trademarks. This evening, we discussed the “Monkey Selfie Case.” Briefly, a British wild-life photographer, David Slater, was attempting to photograph a macaque on the Indonesian Isle of Sulawesi. He claims to have done all the preparatory … More Copyright Still Takes A Human Touch
Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act prohibiting the federal trademark registration of disparaging marks was recently held to violate the 1st Amendment freedom of speech protections by the Federal Circuit Court in “In Re Tam.” The mark refused registration is the name of an Asian-American rock band called “The Slants.” Though the band’s lead singer, … More “Disparaging” Trademark Meets Commercial Speech Protections
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in Keeling v. Har that an unauthorized parody protected by ‘fair use,’ may itself be protected with respect to its original parodic expression and including any added compilations or arrangements to the work. The case involved Point Break Live “PBL,” a theatrical production based upon the movie, starring Keneau … More Copyright Also Protects An Unauthorized Parody
Last week I addressed fair use as an exception to copyright infringement. Among the situations that gave rise to fair use were those deemed transformative. What is a transformative work? As the copyright statute suggests, it is an important consideration that the work neither diminish the value nor damage the market for the original or its … More Kia Soul Hamsters are Funny and Transformative
Copyright Law sets forth an exception to infringement for fair use. But what is a fair use is often confusing. Circumstances often dictate the extent to which this exception is applied. The statute provides express limitation on the exclusive rights granted…. for the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies … More What Use Is a Fair Use
An interesting 1st Circuit opinion extended a hotel’s common law trademark into territory encroaching upon an incontestable junior registered mark of a competing hotel. In the case of Dorpan, S.L. v. Hotel Melià, Inc., Dorpan, a European hotel chain using the brand, Sol Melia, as a registered trademark faced off with the Hotel Melia “HMI” located … More Extending Use Under Trademark Law
I used my mobile phone to snap a picture (below) of an advertisement display outside the movie theater. A photographer owns the rights pursuant to Section 102 (5) of the Copyright Act for pictorial, graphic and sculptural works. However my picture is of a another work, a display created by the media company hired … More Chatham Great White Mile Swim
This week the US Court of Appeals Second Circuit issued Google a reprieve from class action certification. Google was alleged by the Authors Guild to have committed copyright infringement by copying and displaying “snippets” of millions of books in the Library Project of its Google Books search tool. The parties had reached an earlier settlement … More Google Wins Class Action Reprieve
Ambiguity in a contract never favors the drafting party. This basic principle of contract law came back to bite Marvel Comics in a recent Court of Appeals Second Circuit decision, Friedrich v. Marvel, regarding copyright renewal. Gary Friedrich, Plaintiff, allegedly authored or at least co-authored a series of stories and screenplay depicting the fictional Ghost … More When “Forever” Is Not Forever
Clients of my practice usually either have a website or are planning to get one. From an intellectual property “IP” standpoint, the developer agreement is critical to ensure the right content and code necessary for your business to attract clients and customers. There are many terms to consider including project scope, testing, hosting, ownership, payment … More Essential Points of Web Developer Agreements
William Tennant 
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