Sunday, July 30, 2006

I've Clearly Been Out of the Loop. I just noticed this post over at Bag and Baggage. Denise's post has generated quite a large number of posts around the blogosphere, a few of which are rounded up by Dennis Kennedy here and here. Julie Fleming Brown points to a few particularly, uh, enlightening responses here. (Compare and contrast: Tom Collins' The Work/Life Balance Issue Continues to Damage the Legal Profession and Work Life Balance in Law Firms. Both spoken by a non-attorney.)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

So That's Who We Have to Blame... E!Online reports in "You, Me, Dupree & Steely Dan's Wrath." From the article: "In a profanity-laced mock-angry letter posted on the band's Website, Becker and Fagen suggest that the film character of Dupree rips off their song, which tells the tale of a slacker--named Dupree, of course--who is staying on his aunt's couch and starts lusting after his cousin."

Thursday, July 20, 2006

So Do You Have a Duty to Mitigate Your Own Copyright Damages? ZDNet reports that "YouTube sued over copyright infringement." From the article: "Since learning of Tur's suit, YouTube has removed his clip, the company said in its statement. Tur didn't ask that the company remove the clip prior to filing his suit, YouTube said."

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Break Out the Champagne The TTAB Blog reports that TTAB Sanctions Leo Stoller: Vacates All Extensions Granted Since November 2005." From the order: "'... the exhibits from your website do not demonstrate your offering for sale any goods or services, other than the 'rental' of the marks themselves, nor do the website exhibits demonstrate the use of any of the asserted terms as trademarks. These excerpts from your website, rather than evidencing support of any purported claim for damage, reinforce the conclusion that you are holding up thousands of applications in an attempt to coerce applicants to license, i.e., 'rent,' trademarks to which you have not demonstrated any proprietary right.'"

Thursday, July 13, 2006

What Is This Mysterious Thing They Call the Internet? I still don't understand why run-of-the-mill UDRP complaints are still considered newsworthy. Is it a slow news day? Reuters reports that "Goldman challenges Goldmansex.com." From the article: "Goldman Sachs last week submitted a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) arguing the Internet domain name goldmansex.com would cause confusion and contained links to objectionable 'adult' material. The NAF mediates corporate disputes including those over Internet domain names."

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

So How Often Are Circuit Court Judges Accused of Conflicts? Law.com reports that "Stock Conflict Cited in 9th Circuit Judge's Trademark Rulings." From the article: "The motion to vacate the 2005 rulings in M2 Software v. Madacy Entertainment and M2 Software v. M2 Communications was filed Friday. M2 Software, which makes online billing software for Internet music downloads, alleged that Pregerson violated judicial ethics rules in failing to recuse himself from the multimillion-dollar trademark infringement suits."

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Interesting. A friend sent me a link to this new game for the Nintendo DS that's set to come out in September: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Amazingly, it has mostly positive reviews. Somehow I just can't see teenagers spending hours pouring over court records...

Monday, July 10, 2006

So Sanitizing isn't Fair Use. Reuters reports that "Hollywood wins legal fight against sanitized DVDs." From the article: "Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch came down squarely on the side of the Directors Guild of America and the major studios in his ruling that the companies must immediately cease all production, sale and rentals of edited videos. The summary judgment issued Thursday requires the companies -- Utah-based CleanFlicks, CleanFilms and Play It Clean Video, Arizona-based Family Flix USA and the separate entity CleanFlicks of Colorado -- to turn over all existing copies of their edited movies to lawyers for the studios for destruction within five days of the ruling."

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Someone Clearly has too Much Time on their Hands. From Jerusalem, Israel we have Yehuda Berlinger's "Board Games and Gaming Blog." Yehuda has written the entire U.S. Copyright code in verse. A sample:
204

Copyright ownership
Is transferred in writing
And not by pinkie fingers
Or elephant biting

Friday, July 07, 2006

Are We Going to See Social Networking Patent Wars? Red Herring reports that " Friendster Wins Patent." From the article: "The new Friendster patent covers the basic steps involved in joining a social network: entering a personal description and relationships to other users, mapping relationships and degrees of separation, and connecting to others through these friends."