Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Monday, November 24, 2003

He Asked So Nicely... Dan Fingerman, a 2003 Boston Law School Grad, has a new blog, DTM :<|. And you gotta like someone who can use alliteration.
Red Hat Trademark Policy Prompts Opposition InfoWorld is reporting that researchers at UVa and Cornell plan to oppose Red Hat's trademark application for the mark FEDORA, based on their prior use of the mark for their digital management system. The researchers are concerned that Red Hat would attempt to prevent them from using the mark should Red Hat's mark be registered.

Friday, November 21, 2003

Court Hearing on SBC's Challenge to the RIAA's Subpoenas Today C-Net has this report.
They Just Can't Get a Break After being sued by one of Hunton's clients, the AP is reporting that EBay and PayPal now face another patent infringement lawsuit from AT&T. Reuters has this report.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Anti-Diebold Forces Have Their Day in Court Following up on a post a bit further down, C-Net has this report about oral arguments in a case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society seeking to block further DMCA claims by the e-voting software firm.
New EU Copyright Law Takes Effect in UK Today Vnunet.com has this report about the European Union Copyright Directive which took affect at the end of October and makes it a crime to copy a copyrighted DVD, CD or music file, even for personal use. How many US lawyers would be quoted in the press calling the law an "ass"?

Monday, November 17, 2003

What is "Effective" DRM? In a classic chicken-or-the-egg formulation, Rob Semaan, head of US-based company 321 Studios, has put forth a novel interpretation of the new European copyright law that contains anti-circumvention provisions similar to the DMCA. The European law makes it a copyright violation to circumvent "effective" digital rights management technology. According to Semaan, the technology isn't "effective" if it can be broken. Which leads to the question: if Semaan's interpretation is correct ($20 says the judge laughs it out of court), how would you ever violate the anti-circumvention provisions? Seems the technology would only be "effective" if the would-be hacker was unable to crack it, and thus unable to distribute technology to circumvent it.

Friday, November 14, 2003

Inspiration for Flashdance Sues J.Lo We've all heard the canard that everyone in the world is connected within six degrees of separation (probably less if they've ever worked with Kevin Bacon). But a new lawsuit poses the question: how many degrees removed from the original can a work be and still violate the right of publicity? Maureen Marder was the real-life inspiration for 1983's Flashdance. J.Lo decides to turn the video for her single "I'm Glad" into an homage to the movie. Maureen Mauder sues J.Lo. What if I did a parody of the homage to the movie about Maureen Mauder's life?

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

P2P Monitoring Activities Said to Violate Altnet Patent C-Net reports that Altnet has been sending cease and desist letters to nine companies that monitor file-trading networks, accusing them of violating its patent rights. I'm waiting for the inevitable DMCA claim once someone begins encrypting P2P user information.
Gives "Keep Your Enemies Closer" a Whole New Meaning C-Net is reporting on a move by chief executives of LinkedIn and Tribe.net, who are not only competitors of Friendster but also investors, to buy a patent they call a key asset in the battle for the nascent social networking market.
Browser Plug-in Patent under Scrutiny C-Net reports that "Patent office to re-examine Eolas patent".
Global Webcast License Introduced Reuters has this report.

Friday, November 07, 2003

Arrested Development II E! Online has this report about Arrested Development's trademark infringement lawsuit against Fox. Of course, I'm still wondering why they waited until the show was on the air to bring a lawsuit, since I've been reading about the show for months. Maybe they're looking for a pay out?

Thursday, November 06, 2003

What Goes Around, Comes Around The band Arrested Development has sued Fox for trademark infringement over the name of Fox's recently-debuted sitcom "Arrested Development." Looks like my old firm has been tapped as local counsel for Fox. And what's with everyone filing trademark infringement suits in state court? Not sure why they want to stay there, but they've certainly done all they could by adding the local Fox affiliate as a defendant to defeat diversity jurisdiction.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Guess They're Not a Fan of Bob Marley Reuters has this report about a Canadian lawyer who faces possible disbarment for singing Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sherrif" in the hallway during a break in his client's murder trial for shooting and killing a police officer.
Maybe They Should Call it White Whale Beer The AP is reporting that a federal judge has ruled against a New Hampshire brewery attempting to sell "Billy Budd" beer, named for the title character from Herman Melville's posthumously published work, "Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)," on the grounds that the name is confusingly similar to Budweiser's BUD trademark.
Will This Hurt Their Ability to Show Irreparable Harm? Reuters has this report on how some companies, at the direction of major entertainment firms, are using the same P2P networks the RIAA is trying to shut down for marketing purposes, in some cases even deliberately releasing copyrighted content onto the network.

Monday, November 03, 2003

Do You Trust These Guys with an Election? The New York Times has an article about the controversy surrounding the distribution on the Internet of internal memos from Diebold Election Systems, that include discussions of bugs in Diebold’s software and warnings that its computer network are poorly protected against hackers. Donna has a rundown of the issue here.