If you’re a fan of the arts, a tradition on parallel with the dropping of the ball in Times Square which was admittedly eerie this year) is the ushering in of the unofficial holiday of Public Domain Day on January 1st.

Continue reading “Happy Belated Public Domain Day!”

Amidst the ongoing reckoning over America’s largely shameful treatment of people of color, branding probably ranks as a secondary or tertiary concern, but it is a concern nonetheless. Changes in that arena aren’t going to be as meaningful or substantive as changes to broader social policy, but there is a case to be made that we can’t move forward, or even hope to move forward, until we make changes to the signifiers and reminders we see everyday without thought or consideration. Just last month, Cleveland’s baseball team announced they’ll be dropping the name “Indians” after over a century of use, after Washington’s NFL franchise announced their own name change earlier in the year.

Continue reading “Discarded Brands Might Return, But Should They?”

One of the more salient points undergirding pitches for collective action on things like climate change is that we share this place we call Earth, not only with our contemporaries but with future generations. Both states and individuals can claim ownership of some portion of land or sea or sky, but true ownership ultimately eludes any such as us who are transitory figures on a body that has existed long before we arrive and will continue to exist after we’ve departed as a species.

Continue reading “French Environmental Groups Seek To Gain Use of Planet Trademark”

To the extent that the internet is a net positive to the world at large (and after the last few years I am open to arguments to the contrary) one of its great gifts is the weird and funny mashups gifted to us by creative folks all over the world. Like peanut butter and chocolate, they take two great things and demonstrate they work well together, or at the very least are odd enough in their juxtaposition to provide the requisite humor. And many creators, for their part, either appreciate the love and creativity that goes into the mashups, or at least recognizes that the work is likely transformative enough to not be subject to a copyright infringement case.

Continue reading “Star Trek/Dr. Seuss Mashup Found To Be Not Protected By Copyright Law”

Few things sever any lingering connections to your childhood like the disillusionment with those things you once held in great esteem at that age. It’s perhaps the root of much cynicism that people and organizations that ostensibly exist to support and nurture young people are eventually discovered to be flawed in ways great and small, and perhaps no organization embodies this more than the Boy Scouts of America. Once though of as a body that could instill positive values in young people, BSA has fallen far from that perch in the light of recent scandals, with the most damning being tens of thousands of claims of sexual abuse that came to light in recent bankruptcy filings.

Continue reading “Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts Locked In Trademark Conflict”

One of the benefits, one might suppose, of being among the most famous people on the planet is that relatively few people are unaware of important facts about you. It’s fair to say that LeBron James ranks among those people, as his mega-stardom has made him known and recognizable the world over, even in places not enraptured with the game of basketball, and among those who don’t know the sport at all and would struggle to name another player. His brand is ubiquitous, to use marketing parlance, to the point that it’s hard to imagine anyone might be unaware of it.

Continue reading “LeBron James Adds Trademark Blocking to Repertoire”

In writing about legal cases, whether they be in the sphere of intellectual property or falling anywhere else outside of it, it’s quite easy to spend your attention on the initial battle, ignoring the ongoing fight or the eventual resolution. Largely that’s a function of the legal system itself and the astonishing amount of time it can take a particular case to matriculate through the courts; beginning and end in many instances are separated by years, and repercussion and adjudication matter far less than the fact that the initial filing that’s been largely forgotten as well. 

Continue reading “Minaj, Chapman Settle Copyright Case”

A bedrock tenant in intellectual property law is being first to the post when it comes to filing for trademarks; otherwise, you and your business or project are simply out of luck, regardless of the primacy of your creation. That said, there is something to having a history and building brand recognition separate and apart from any IP considerations, and when it comes to the world of sport, few deal in history more than soccer and its composite clubs and federations. 

Continue reading “MLS Loses Appeal Over “Inter” Name”

It’s hard to generate much sympathy for megacorporations, particularly at a time when they are bigger and more powerful than they’ve ever been, but there are instances where even they can garner something like sympathy among the broader public (or at least the public that follows intellectual property news.)  These massive companies aren’t necessarily popular, to be sure, but less popular still are the patent trolls that are seeking to make their living through frivolous, baseless lawsuits. 

Continue reading “Apple Loses Appeal to Set Aside Patent Infringement Verdict”

There is perhaps nothing sadder and more telling of the innate flaws of human nature than the inevitable fight that often takes place upon the death of a popular and prolific artist. We’ve all seen stories of the genre: family is pit against record label over the rights to the now-deceased artist’s work, or worse still, family is given over to internecine fighting over those same rights. We’d like to think our own families would do better, but then again none of us can imagine either the talent involved in creating such work or the money and privilege now accessible to those in the artist’s orbit. We’re all good until such a point as we’re bad, in short.  

Continue reading “Family of Jimi Hendrix Battles Over Trademark Rights”