Inequitable conduct cases don’t happen every day in patent law, so when one comes along, it can be interesting. A recent decision from North Dakota examined an unusual set of facts surrounding the sale of patented hydraulic fracturing technology almost two years before the inventor filed a patent application. After…
A photographer’s journey to an Indonesian nature preserve resulted in macaque monkeys having fun with his camera.When a monkey’s “selfie” went viral, so did the copyright questions. Multiple disputes ensued, including a lawsuit filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against the photographer and his publisher arguing that…
They are everywhere you look online: compressed image files, usually animated, of people or animals. Graphic Interchange Format (GIF), created to reduce file transfer time, has given rise to social media feeds full of cats riding burritos in space and ubiquitous iterations of the salmon cannon. And lots of athletes…
I remember the dot matrix printer I used in college. It weighed about 50 pounds, and I almost broke my back every time I moved it. Plus, every document I printed on that monster was basically illegible. In light of that experience, I must confess that I welcomed the news…
Over the past few months, there has been an interesting trend in trademark law around the world, with the creative use of social media technologies colliding with the creative use of the trademark registration system. Yes, I’m talking about #trademark mania, aka the rush to trademark hashtags. We can talk…
You've spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to build your startup (and more friends-and-family money that you care to admit). One of the smartest things you can do at this point (besides hiring a great CFO), is protect your brand from a potential trademark infringers (and avoid a…