Author Archives: mwillee

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”

Say what you want about American intellectual property law (and I do), but it certainly lets people try their luck at obtaining just about any sort of mark or patent, even if the application is ultimately rejected. It’s undoubtedly someone’s notion of the American ideal that ambition in this arena not be bound by commonContinue reading “Someone Tried to Trademark Breakfast Burritos, Because Of Course”

The lockdown and isolation that we’re all living through has brought certain realities to light; namely, that as much as many people may have lamented that much of life had moved online prior to March 2020, it was nothing compared to what we’re experiencing right now. The last bastions of in-person activites have shuttered orContinue reading “Online Education Exposes the Flaws of Copyright Law”

Now more than ever we are made aware of our reliance upon Amazon in providing us with what we want and need, and for the duration of our current crisis questions about wages and hours for warehouse workers or the sheer dominance of the online retailer and whether that’s good for anybody but Amazon becomeContinue reading “Amazon Wins Trademark Duspute Over Third Party Infringement”

Given that the current moment we’re living through, in which the coronavirus dominates every aspect of our lives, has been both recent and sudden and also seemingly eternal, it’s both shocking and not at all surprising to see the amount of COVID-19 -related malfeasance and opportunism that has been unearthed. Bad actors are to beContinue reading “Coronavirus Trademark Scams Pose Risk for Businesses and Consumers Alike”

There are no shortage of new problems technology has introduced into the world, but notionally there are some things that should be exempted from that principle, and for many young people, video games is front of mind as an example. The internet and smartphones may provide new ways to spy on us or hack ourContinue reading “NBA2K Makers Win Summary Judgment in Copyright Case”

It’s become commonplace for big companies to target smaller businesses with trademark or copyright complaints over what could be termed marginal cases, if we’re being generous. It’s easy enough for the big companies to do — most have the budget for considerable in-house or outside counsel to pursue such cases, and there’s no penalty forContinue reading “Comedian Changes Name to Protest Trademark Misuse”

Music copyright has proven to be a tricky topic in recent years, given how readily available music is at present paired with the ability to take on alleged infringement, both through YouTube and in the courts. (Not that any court case would ever be considered easy.) The exponential growth in copyright cases within music isContinue reading “Musician Tries To Fix Copyright By Copyrighting All The Melodies”