Author Archives: mwillee

Cast your mind, if you will, back to 2010; do you recall what you were doing? Who you were, and how different your life was then to how it is now? A decade is a long time in the course of human life, and it’s a long time for a court case to wend itsContinue reading “Supreme Court Sides With Google In API Copyright Case”

I’m typically loath to revisit stories too many times, but occasionally you have to see something out to its end, particularly if its end is particularly ignominious. 

If you’re not up on shoe culture, stories about old and new kicks going for occasionally eye-watering prices can boggle the mind. Regardless of how you feel about it, though, there is a lot of money in the buying and selling of collectible shoes, and notably, a lot of that money is made on secondaryContinue reading “Lil Nas X’s Controversial Shoes Draw Trademark Suit From Nike”

For those fortunate enough to go to college (or unfortunate, depending on your reaction to that first student loan bill) picking the institution to attend is a big and thrilling step in your journey into adulthood. For many it’s the first time they’ll be living independently of their parents, sometimes hundreds or even thousands ofContinue reading “Colleges Shutting Down Virtual Tours on Trademark Grounds”

It’s not uncommon to see corporations go after fans who are engaged in infringement of that company’s intellectual property, and it’s easy to understand why even if you don’t always agree: every business wants full control over their IP and how it’s used and sold, and these fans are taking money out of the pocketsContinue reading “Nintendo Wins Judgment in Infringement Case, Gets Nothing”

Hard as it may be to believe now, the conglomeration known as Disney has its origins as an animation studio trying to make its way in the early days of Hollywood. Harder still to believe, given that Disney now seems to own much of the existing popular intellectual property that exists, was that the nascentContinue reading “Disney’s Loki Trademarks Draw Criticism From Fans”

The past few years has seen an explosion of products that are new variations on old staples. Take milk, for instance. For most of my life milk was synonymous with cow’s milk, and really that was the only milk you could get. Goat’s milk garnered the occasional mention, but only as something that you drankContinue reading “Oatly Pursues Trademark Case Against Family Farm”

One of the bedrock principles of our capitalist arrangement is that people have the ability to use what ability they have to make a buck for themselves, however that may be. We can debate about how that plays out in reality across multiple levels of society, but for the purposes of this article, let’s acceptContinue reading “College QB Files First Trademark Under New NCAA Guidelines”

A lot of attention in any intellectual property case is paid to either the plaintiff or the defendant, or both, and rightfully so: theirs is the dispute at the heart of the case. Far less attention is given to the judges in any of those cases, which again seems as it should be; like aContinue reading “Supreme Court Ruling Curbs Patent Appeal Board Judges’ Power”

It’s nothing new, but the role and responsibility of social media platforms when it comes to the behavior of its users is something that will probably be contested until such time as the internet ceases to be a thing, which at this point seems concurrent with the end of humans as a species. Platforms professContinue reading “EU Sides With YouTube in Copyright Infringement Challenge”