Trademark & Copyright

This week, Yahoo! won a $610 million default judgment in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in a case involving the infamous Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud perpetrated through the Defendants' infringing use of Yahoo!’s trademarks and spam.

I recently had the pleasure of attending a very informative presentation given by the Media Law Resource Center on two very important pieces of legislation currently working their way through Congress.

A few weeks ago, while in Montpelier, Vermont, I stumbled upon a Farmer's Market that featured a wealth of Vermont made, grown and raised art, produce and meats. In the midst of this bounty was Bo Muller-Moore, a self-described folk artist who is the creator of t-shirts proclaiming EAT MORE KALE. 

In opposition to the imminent launch of the new  .XXX generic top level domain (gTLD), two adult entertainment companies have filed suit in federal district court in Los Angeles against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and ICM Registry, the sole operator of the .XXX domain name registry.

On January 12, 2012, ICANN will roll out its new gTLD program.  Under the new program, applicants will be able to create and register a Top-Level Domain registry of their choosing.

UDRP proceedings are often touted as a quick and inexpensive way to resolve domain name disputes. Several recent UDRP decisions denying relief to trademark owners, however, demonstrate that in some instances the UDRP may not be the appropriate tool.

If you’re familiar with the federal registration of trademarks and service marks in the United States, you know that U.S. trademark law allows an applicant to seek registration of a mark based on either actual use of a mark in interstate commerce  (15 U.S.C. Sec 1051(a)) or on a bona fide intent to use the mark in U.S. commerce (15 U.S.C. Sec 1051(b)).

Only two days remain to submit applications to block registration of .xxx domain names that include registered trademarks.

Section 505 of the Copyright Act provides that, in a copyright infringement action, the court may "in its discretion" award costs to a prevailing party. In addition, the provision provides that the court "may" award a prevailing party its reasonable attorney's fees as part of the award of costs.

Our colleagues who blog at Mintz Levin's Privacy & Security Matters just posted an updated chart of state data breach notification laws.

In the latest Google AdWords decision, a U.S. Federal District Court judge in Texas refused to certify two classes of advertisers who filed separate infringement suits against Google Inc. 

Over the past few years, starting with the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA’s) well-publicized campaign to enforce the copyrights of its associated record companies, new types of copyright infringement litigation techniques have been tried all over the country.

Remember last year when the European Union's Court of Justice ruled that Google did not violate European Union law by selling trademarks as keywords and thereby permitting advertisers to purchase and use keywords corresponding to their competitor's trademarks in Google ads? 

Although .xxx domain names will not become generally available to the public until December 6, 2011, many registrars are offering pre-registration of these domain names now. 

The Washington Post recently published an interesting article showing how opportunistic entrepreneurs and various branches of the U.S. military have collaborated to create a $50 million market for goods branded with various US military insignia and trademarks.

Perhaps no other industry is more cognizant of the need to build upon and reinterpret prior work than the fashion industry. The idea that designs must constantly change and evolve several times a year with fresh and innovative new styles is a firmly entrenched concept and results in a mind-bogglingly large amount of new fashion designs every year.

Are you concerned that the name of your business or the trademark used in connection with your best-selling product will be used in connection with an adult entertainment website given the soon-to-be launched .XXX domain names?

Last month, the kitchen and bath giant, Kohler Co., filed an anti-cybersquatting suit in federal court in California against several cybersquatters. In its complaint, Kohler alleges that it previously paid the named defendants $500 to transfer a domain name incorporating the KOHLER trademark in exchange for their agreement that they would not register any additional domain names containing the KOHLER mark in the future.