To prove copyright infringement, the plaintiff must show that it owns a valid copyright and must establish that the defendant engaged in the unauthorized copying of the work protected by the copyright. “Copying” refers to the act of infringing any of the exclusive rights that accrue to the owner of a valid copyright under 17 […]
By: Tyler Hampy To begin, what is unfair competition? Although the courts have had little success in defining unfair competition in the abstract, Black’s Law Dictionary defines unfair competition as dishonest or fraudulent rivalry in trade and commerce, specifically, the practice of endeavoring to pass off one’s own goods or products in the market […]
You started your company four years ago and everything is going well when all of a sudden you are handed a cease and desist letter. The letter informs you that you are using another company’s trademark – their company name. What are you to do? With the world increasingly getting smaller thanks to the internet, […]
What is a company trademark? “A trademark is any name, symbol, figure, letter, word, or mark adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant in order to designate his or her goods and to distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others.” – defined by dictionary.com. There are many different types of distinctive marks […]
Traditionally, trade dress was limited to the overall appearance of labels, wrappers, and containers used in packaging a product. However, over a period of years, the traditional definition expanded beyond packages and containers to include the total look of a product. Today, the total look includes the packaging, as well as the design, shape, size, […]
I’ve filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register my trademark and I have received correspondence indicating that my registration of my applied for mark had been refused based upon a likelihood of confusion. What does this mean? One of the more popular rejections from the USPTO involves a […]
In 1955, a 65 year old man wearing a white suit to match his white hair and goatee took $105 out his social security to start franchising his fried chicken recipe. Less than ten years later, he had 600 franchisee restaurants selling his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken. This man was the legendary Colonel Harland Sanders. […]
In the early 1990’s before the dot.com craze, a young entrepreneur named Ray Sozzi started his company Student Advantage. His company sold student advantage discount membership cards to the higher education market. In a stroke of genius or good fortune, he decided to secure several domain names for his business. One of the domain names […]
