Author Archives: mwillee

Within the confines of the legal system, copyright cases can seem rather banal compared to the more salacious proceedings on offer within the criminal courts. Copyright cases make the news, sure, but they’re not likely to make the front page, save for the possibility of a day when a copyright case threatens to unravel aContinue reading ““Comedians in Cars”Copyright Case Canned in Court”

The old saw among the chattering classes is that there’s no such thing as bad press, but recent years seems to have given lie to that notion. Indeed, nowadays it seems more beneficial to go about your work building a company quietly, lest your flaws and mistakes and in some instances weirdness be put onContinue reading “WeWork Has Trademark Payment Problem, In Addition to Every Other Problem”

We don’t often consider the role of intellectual property in international intrigue and espionage, to the extent that we give consideration of the real life existence and application of spycraft, but perhaps we should rethink how we consider the matter. After all, what is spying but the clandestine search for secrets and information, and theContinue reading “G.E. Aviation Targeted in Trade Secret Theft Plot”

In watching LeBron James display his generational talents on a basketball court (last season notwithstanding), I occasionally give thought to a few passing similarities between us. In many (zero) ways, we could be mirrors of one another: both from Ohio (that much is at least accurate), somewhat close in age (sadly, I’m a year closerContinue reading “LeBron James Files Taco Tuesday Trademark”

New technologies, and the subsequent advances in those new technologies, present new problems, particularly for laws drawn up and passed years, if not decades ago. In fairness, it’s hard to plan for a future that you can’t predict, and you only have to take a look at the portrayals of the future (now our present)Continue reading “Amazon’s New Audiobook Feature Draws Publishers’ Ire”

In this space I cover a lot of stories pulled straight from the day’s news, often involving multinational corporations and the equivalent level of stars from the entertainment business. All big deals, to be sure, but none could hope to approach the level of status on offer to artists geared to kids. While we asContinue reading ““Baby Shark” Heads to Court (Do do do do do do.)”

There are few things that can make us take leave of our senses more readily than sports, and when combined with parochialism and a provincial mindset, a certain mania is loosed within the minds of otherwise sane people. In fans, it leads to tattoos, to drunken parking lot fistfights with opposing fans, to shelling outContinue reading “Ohio State University Leans Into Reputation, Files for “The” Trademark”

We’ve all spent enough time on the internet to have seen our share of hoaxes over the years. Maybe we’ve fallen prey to one or two, although we’d never admit it in public, and maybe not ever to ourselves. P.T. Barnum’s dictum of ” a sucker born every minute” applies to those other folks sharingContinue reading “A Copyright Hoax Runs Wild”

There are few hings more totemically American, at least in origin, as McDonald’s. The arches. The colors. The menu items. The subsequent guilt and shame that come with each meal. It’s a brand that’s been built over decades, and one that serves as the foundation of what we know as fast food today. What weContinue reading “McDonald’s Trademark Battle in Ireland”

There’s no greater harbinger of potential legal issues than success. In a reading more generous to plaintiffs in the scores of lawsuits that pop up around successful artists, creators and businesses, you could assert that it’s the success that brings the infringement to light; the aggrieved doesn’t know they’ve had their idea infringed upon untilContinue reading “Lady Gaga Facing Copyright Claims For “Shallow””