Author Archives: mwillee

In a world that is globally connected, one thing that can remain regional and provincial is restaurants, or, given the conglomerated nature of everything today, restaurant chains. Each region of the country has its own chains that denizens swear by, and in moving west in early-2014, I became privy to In-N-Out Burger, which has noContinue reading “In-N-Out Presses Trademark Case in Australia, Without Actual Restaurants”

The pandemic has forced nearly every business that relies upon having multiple people in a single location to rethink their models in a way that would allow them to continue operating with as little contact between people as possible. But what if your business is premised upon thousands of people gathering together in one locationContinue reading “UFC Trademarks UFSEA, With An Assist From John Oliver”

Intellectual property as a concept — the notion that ideas can be protected by their creators for the purpose of exclusive profit — is one that is central to the construction of capitalism as we know it both here in the United States and throughout much of the world. Businesses exist on the idea thatContinue reading “Will Intellectual Property Destroy The Planet?”

Verisimilitude in video games is a relatively new issue, and as seen in the case brought by Lebron James’ tattoo artist against NBA2K, it brings with it a host of new issues about depiction and representations in the medium. Trademark or copyright aren’t much of a concern in 8- or 16-bit formats, but design andContinue reading “Call of Duty Wins Case Over Trademark Use on First Amendment Grounds”

We’ve all probably experienced the phenomenon of cascading bad luck, wherein misfortune piles upon itself until we feel that fate has conspired against us. The alarm doesn’t go off, the car won’t start, work projects go awry —eventually we feel like kindred spirits with Job. But however bad our toughest periods might have been, weContinue reading “TikTok Faces Copyright Lawsuit As Woes Mount”

I’ve written previously about the relatively recent problem of video games reproducing real-life products and places and the potential for trademark infringement, at least in the minds of those companies who find their products in games that seek to replicate facsimile of the world as we know it. Not every game seeks to do that,Continue reading “Fortnite Creators Sued For Trademark Infringement Over Map”

Among the many benefits that the proliferation of the internet and search engines have provided, finding song lyrics wouldn’t rank among the most important, but it would certainly be a more popular use than, say, looking up academic papers for school work. And it’s an underrated benefit; for years prior, you had to rely onContinue reading “Google Saved In Genius Lawsuit By Copyright Considerations”

Innovation is what spurs tech companies to the top of the proverbial pile, but, once there, some seem to lose that innovative spirit, relying instead upon their accrued power to stay atop the marketplace. Instead of coming up with new ideas, it’s easier to simply buy up the innovative companies out there, or perhaps justContinue reading “Instagram Facing Trademark Lawsuit Over New Reels Feature”

What right does any company have over names that are similar only due to that company’s sheer size and ubiquity? It’s true that certain brands can be evoked not only by their name and logo, but by an entire subcategory of similar designs and conventions, but should that be the case, from a legal perspective?Continue reading “Prepear’s Fortunes Go Pear-Shaped With Apple Trademark Objections”

In cases of infringement, intent is irrelevant to the substantive facts of a case. Either something infringes upon a copyright or trademark or patent, or it doesn’t; whether the accused meant to do it or not changes nothing. Still, it probably matters to our ideas about justice and recompense as to whether intent existed orContinue reading “Taylor Swift Alters Logo to Avoid Trademark Infringement”