Author Archives: mwillee

Much of the narrative about IP lawsuits carters around the separate and seemingly unequal systems of justice that exist depending on net worth. Bigger businesses with more resources can afford better lawyers for longer, and in many cases indefinitely, as in-house legal teams are a thing for those select corporations. Small businesses can struggle toContinue reading “Intel Staring Down $2.28 Billion Patent Infrigement Judgment”

Wait long enough and you’ll live to see your favorite films come around again in a new, rebooted form, to the lamentations of those old enough to either remember the original or even care about such things. It’s trite to say that Hollywood currently is nothing but sequels, reboots and overextended franchises (and prospective overextendedContinue reading “‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ Reboot Runs Into Copyright Suit”

Trademarks are meant to protect a business’ particular brand, its unique identity and creativity that it has carved out for itself in the landscape. The best trademarks are the ones immediately evocative of a particular product or pitch, rendered in the space in your brain previously reserved for childhood memories or something else not pervadedContinue reading “Peleton Challenges Trademarks on Spin and Spinning”

In business as in life, friends and partners can grow apart over time as one or both parties change. And in both instances, success can play no small part in shifting the nature of those relationships, particularly if one party experiences far more of it than the other. 

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”

A point often made, and worth repeating ad nauseum, is that it’s crucial to get your intellectual property affairs in order early, and to do so in a thorough, comprehensive manner. Scrambling after the fact to try and get whatever trademarks or copyrights or patents you need isn’t a good process, and rarely leads toContinue reading “Washington Football Team Loses Trademark Bid For ‘Washington Football Team’”