Most people think of Ski Town USA as Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The Steamboat Ski and Resort Corporation trademarked the name in 1959. Earlier this year, in order to entice more skiers to their city, the Visit Salt Lake organization started a campaign urging people to visit Ski City USA. They advertised that once you visited […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
5 Myths about Intellectual Property
For the most part, people don’t set out to “steal” someone else’s property or creative ideas, but they are often inspired by what they see or what they’ve heard, which in turn leads them down a sometimes daunted path of inappropriate business dealings equating to the loss of their business, fines, fees and even bankruptcy. […]
The Major Differences between Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
Trademarks, copyrights, and patents are all available to the public upon request. You do not have to be a business owner or part of a major company to apply for one of them. You must have something unique that is not a copy of someone else’s work in order to be granted a patent, copyright, […]
Film Director Terry Gilliam Sued For Alleged Use of Street Mural in His New Film ‘Zero Theorem’
On August 12, 2014, the film director Terry Gilliam was sued over a mural painting in his latest movie, The Zero Theorem. A group of street artists, two from Argentina and one from Canada filed the lawsuit claiming the alleged plagiarizing their mural in Argentina. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois and […]
Infringing on Others’ Rights
Infringing of any kind over things such as products, trademarks, copyrights, patents and intellectual property is illegal. But some people have the idea that copying or reproducing something, or producing similar things that resemble the original is not infringing or violating. Is your product infringing on others’ exclusive rights? Is the question that should be […]
Trademark Infringement – A Real Case
Cases of trademark infringement have become more common on the internet. Some of these cases are genuine complaints, made against online users who do not have any idea in this field. Some claims of infringements are unsuitable that the charges made for trademark infringement is dubious. The Trademark law shields the trademark holder’s unique rights. […]
Strange but True Trademark
Trademarks are very important to have protected properly and legally. If you have been creative to come up with something that is unique and worthy of a trademark, then you deserve to have the exclusivity that goes along with that. Many people have come up with names, symbols, and other things that could easily be […]
Can Pi be trademark protected?
Think back to math class. Do you remember learning about pi? It’s that funny little greek letter that looks like this π. It is used to represent the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and is roughly defined as 3.14159 no matter how large or small the circle is. It is one of […]
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Cancels Redskins Trademark
On Wednesday June 18, 2014, the United States Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six Washington Redskins trademarks citing that the football team’s name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus in violation of federal trademark laws banning offensive or disparaging language. This topic has been a hot one in the world of intellectual property law the last […]
What Qualifications Must a Patent Lawyer Possess?
What is the difference between a patent lawyer and patent agent? Both are licensed to practice and represent clients before the United States Patent and Trade Offices. Both patent agents and patent attorneys can prepare and file patent applications. The difference between them is that patent agents cannot “opinion of validity of another party’s patent […]
