Author Archives: mwillee

To what extent can creators be held responsible for the ways in which their creations are used, particularly if those uses fall outside of what is legal or ethical? It’s a worthwhile question to consider these days. We’ve more technology in our hands —quite literally in the case of smartphones— than could have been dreamtContinue reading “A Google Play Copyright Case: When Can We Blame Tools For How They’re Used?”

A common theme in this space, and many others like it, is the law as a weapon as much as a shield. Laws exist in theory to protect us, sure, but we’re all eventually indoctrinated into the idea that laws also exist to protect the more powerful against challenge or consequence. There’s a reason thatContinue reading “Monster Energy Pushes Trademark Case Against Small Root Beer Maker”

It’s true of most new things that it takes a while for the problems and kinks to get worked out. It tends to be particularly true when something has exploded overnight, as is wont to happen from time to time with new technologies and platforms. The benefits, the appeal are evident to everyone involved, butContinue reading “TikTok to be Investigated for Copyright Theft?”

The tech world is no stranger to pressure, legal or otherwise, but this moment in time feels a bit different from years past. Suddenly Big Tech finds itself under scrutiny from lawmakers and opinion-makers alike, as they grow so large and so powerful that the biggest among them recognize that the constraints on their powerContinue reading “Apple Finds Itself the Target of Patent Infringement Case”

“Use it or lose it” isn’t a principle we generally associate with ownership — we all have closets filled with unused stuff that nevertheless remains ours for years — but it is one of the hallmarks of trademark law. Whatever your opinion of our current IP laws, it’s almost unquestionably a good thing that individualsContinue reading “Reminder: Use Your Trademarks or Risk Losing Them”

I’ve written before about the problems with both the aggressive assertion of copyright and the inability of online platforms to discern legitimate claims from the misuse of reporting tools on offer, with YouTube as the convergence point of these dual phenomena. Invariably the response from these platforms is that their user base is too largeContinue reading “YouTube’s Copyright Reporting Problems Continue Apace”

We don’t often talk about trade secrets in this space, because they are by definition secretive and unreported. It’s easy to understand and follow stories about trademarks or patents because we can identify what’s been infringed upon and how it relates to the products we know and consume. Trade secrets, on the other hand, haveContinue reading “Former Coca-Cola Employee Absconds With Trade Secrets”

There’s much made of the importance of copyright for creators, and for good reason: without any sort of legal protection or ownership rights, the act of creation itself would be meaningless, with the ultimate profit and benefit for a work ultimately going to whomever has the resources to both exploit it and muscle out theContinue reading “Is Copyright Killing Music?”

Wearable tech has been a fairly recent trend, unless you want to count the calculator watch. And preeminent in that trend has been Fitbit, which offers devices that monitor your activity and your health, should you actually want to know about such things. To those of us less technically-inclined, it seems like magic that aContinue reading “Fitbit Facing Investgation Into Patent Infringement From USITC”

It’s easy to wonder, given how relatively easy it is to search the respective databases containing registered trademarks, why anyone would thus infringe upon those marks given that they could or should know the error of their ways. One view is that it’s a simple oversight on the part of the offender, an honest mistake,Continue reading “SCOTUS Hearing Case on Trademark Profits and Willful Intent”