Intellectual Property Law

MyPods, myPhones, and, of course the myCube: ?fueled by dreams, powered by imagination.?

Posted on December 15, 2008
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Monster Snow Job

Posted on December 15, 2008
Monster Cable is trying to stem the tide of public criticism it has received for its aggressive litigation tactics and claims that it owns the word “monster” virtually in gross with this. How many distortions of trademark law can you spot? Just for starters, Monster Cable may “have been awarded 100 registered Monster trademarks in [...

?Obama logo ideas that weren?t chosen?

Posted on December 15, 2008
Read about them, with interesting commentary by an Obama strategist, here. I actually sort of like this one: This one, however, reminds me of Oprah’s logo too much. And it also kind of looks like a condom: Check out the wide range of losing contenders here...

Christmas Lights!

Posted on December 14, 2008
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Campaign Poster Fail

Posted on December 13, 2008
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I love college towns.

Posted on December 13, 2008
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Frugality Trumps Trademark Power!

Posted on December 13, 2008
Or so this article in the NYT suggests. Entitled “Store Brands Lift Grocers in Troubled Times” it reports in pertinent part: … As the economy plunges into a deep recession, grocery stores are one of the few sectors doing well. That is because cash-short consumers are eating out less and stocking up at the supermarket...

?The 7 Dumbest Things Ever Done by Airport Security?

Posted on December 12, 2008
Yep, these sound pretty dumb. We can only hope they don’t get superseded. No Tags

Something to ponder with your students when teaching the ?Harjo? case in Trademark law.

Posted on December 11, 2008
A soccer team in Amsterdam has the nickname “the Jews.” As this blogger notes: This would be a great example to use in a discussion of sports mascots, particularly how it compares to American Indian mascots (for examples, see this post) and Notre Dame?s Fighting Irish mascot (see post here)...

?Taylorism ? Ann Taylorism?

Posted on December 11, 2008
The last time I bought clothing at a big box store, the cashier wadded it up into a plastic bag, rather than placing a bag over the hangers and tying the bag at the bottom, which had been the previous practice at that retailer, at least in my experience...

Don?t watch this if you have a latex allergy.

Posted on December 09, 2008
Don’t think I ever saw this factory tour on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood! No Tags

That?s an Obama speechwriter on the left.

Posted on December 06, 2008
Charming, huh? From this WaPo story: Question No. 58 in the transition team vetting document for the Obama White House asks that applicants: “Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e...

Joe Satriani and Coldplay, the Chiffons and George Harrison

Posted on December 05, 2008
Today, it has been reported that guitarist Joe Satriani has sued Coldplay, alleging that portions of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” incorporate material from Satriani’s “If I Could Fly.” For those (like me) who didn’t instantly know what the suit is about, Youtube has some interesting videos comparing the relevant portions of the songs - [...

Tesla and the Future of American Automobiles

Posted on December 05, 2008
While the Big 3 American automakers ask the federal government for billions of dollars to save them and the economy and workers depending on them, Tesla Motors, producer of an all-electric roadster, has asked for $400 million from the existing federal Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Incentive Program (ATVM), created by Congress in 2007 to support [...

Nuggets, and a Line of the Day

Posted on December 05, 2008
Print journalism lends itself to nuggets, bits of writing tucked away at the bottom of the piece to reward those people who read all the way to the end (or who cheat and read the last part first).  Links to digital cleverness on the Internet (both hyperlinks and easter eggs) never strike me the same [...

Cyber-Stimulus

Posted on December 04, 2008
As I read over some fascinating papers for the Wharton CMCL tomorrow, I’m happy to see that many leading thinkers are addressing the challenge of a New Deal for tech policy. Via TPM, Yochai Benkler pushes for new infrastructure–both physical and cultural: We hear a lot about infrastructure investment today: roads and bridges, mostly...

WKRP is back on the air in Cincinnati, sort of?

Posted on December 03, 2008
Via this site, which reports: WKRP is back on the air in Cincinnati — but this time it’s for real. A low-power TV station has changed its call letters to WKRP, the same as the fictional radio station in the 1970s hit series “WKRP in Cincinnati...

The Structural Transformation of the Recursive Public Sphere

Posted on December 02, 2008
Christopher Kelty’s book Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software offers an anthropological take on a phenomenon often assimilated to the economic or the technical. One of the key concepts in the book is an idea of the “recursive public:” A recursive public is a public that is vitally concerned with the material [...

Holiday Pie-rets

Posted on December 02, 2008
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Warmthvertising

Posted on December 02, 2008
Now here is some marketing change I can believe in: In a national advertising first, Stove Top Stuffing is warming up Chicagoans this December by heating 10 bus shelters throughout the Windy City’s high-traffic commuter and shopping areas to help busy consumers keep cozy throughout the hustle and bustle of the holiday season...

The Slanket: Chia Pet of 2008?

Posted on December 01, 2008
Info here. No Tags

Virtue Research

Posted on December 01, 2008
Spotted at The University of Chicago’s Science of Virtues project, and with tantalizing possible applications to law and technology questions: In what ways might the humanities and the sciences cooperate to develop richer understandings of virtue for modern societies? The Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce a new $3 million research program [...

?Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain?

Posted on November 30, 2008
Via this online periodical, which reports in pertinent part: A steady stream of devoted evolutionists continued to gather in this small Tennessee town today to witness what many believe is an image of Charles Darwin?author of The Origin Of Species and founder of the modern evolutionary movement?made manifest on a concrete wall in downtown Dayton...

No cell phone, barely any Internets?

Posted on November 30, 2008
So I spent the past few days visiting family in rural parts of the Northeast, and though I visited four fairly widely dispersed residences, not a single one had cell phone access via either Verizon or AT&T. That’s all I could check, but I don’t think any other company facilitated service in any of these [...

Googlement

Posted on November 30, 2008
“Googlement,” rather than “government,” seems to be the theme of Jeffrey Rosen’s NYT piece today on how Google decides what stays and what goes on its various platforms.  Frank Pasquale offered his own take on the piece here:  The ostensibly public-spirited motives of an enormous, for-profit enterprise ought to be examined critically...

Does Google Have a Right to Censor?

Posted on November 29, 2008
Jeffrey Rosen had an excellent article on “Google’s Gatekeepers” today, focusing on the company’s legal and policy decisions about what content to index. For example, after a group of videos mocked Turkey’s founder, Google’s deputy general counsel Nicole Wong decided that Google ...

One Lucky Penguin

Posted on November 29, 2008
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?Mehpathetic?

Posted on November 25, 2008
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Copyrights in Movie and Painting Styles?

Posted on November 24, 2008
Some music videos are really entrancing. Kelly Osbourne’s recent One Word is directly inspired by the great film Alphaville, as Ms. Osbourne happily acknowledges: “I’m going for something like very ‘Alphaville,’ ” Osbourne told MTV News last month when she was dreaming up the concept…...

Kelly on Visual Literacy

Posted on November 24, 2008
Last Sunday’s NYTimes allegedy devoted its whole magazine to the notion of “screens” everywhere.  I write “allegedly,” because the cover featured an odd photo of Jennifer Aniston, and the accompanying interview seemed to have little to do with the theme...

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