In International and Hermès of Paris v. Rothschild, the famous Birkin bag served as a device to trigger the plot in a lawsuit about trademarks, first amendment rights, and talking too much. The defendant is a self-styled marketing strategist and entrepreneur who comes from the fashion industry. Before the events in this lawsuit, he created…
An interesting issue of contract law emerged from a patent dispute in the Southern District of New York in mid-October. Perry Street Software, Inc. v. Jedi Technologies, Inc. involved a motion to compel arbitration involving dating apps, patents, and Terms of Service. Jedi Technologies holds a patent used by many dating mobile applications. Perry Street…
In City of New York v. Blue Rage Inc, a mom-and-pop clothing store was sued for trademark violations by the City of New York. The Cop Shop, located in Massapequa, Long Island, is the culmination of former transit policeman Salvatore Piccolo’s dream to serve the law enforcement community even in retirement. In addition to providing regulation…
How do you anger a judge? First, lie to her about why you missed a court date. Then, accuse her of “usurpation of judicial authority” or “a breach of judicial decorum.” That language was among many bad decisions made by attorney Richard Liebowitz in a copyright infringement case over which the Hon. Cathy Seibel in the Southern…
At the end of January, the Northern District of California waded into the dangerous and complicated waters of software copyright infringement in Oracle v. Hewlett Packard. The case concerned software patches, or updates, licensed by Oracle and installed by Hewlett Packard, sometimes through a support services company called Terix. Before this suit, Oracle and Terix knew…
Cervejaria Petropolis SA v. Ambev S.A. comes our way from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C., via the TTAB. In this case, Ambev had applied to the USPTO for registration of the mark FUSION, but was barred by the registration of the appellant, Cervejaria Petropolis (CP) for the same mark. CP had inherited the FUSION…
In a previous blog, I wrote about the case of DuBay v. King, in which the alleged heir of the rights to the comic book The Rook sued author Stephen King — and anyone who had ever been in the same room with him — for infringement. The case was dismissed on summary judgment after an analysis proved there…
Though it has a reputation for being cheaper and faster than litigation, arbitration was on trial in a recent district court decision. In CELLInfo v. “American Tower,” CELLInfo (CI) sued American Tower Corp (ATC) for, among other things, trade secret infringement and breach of contract. ATC responded by making a motion to dismiss the case or, alternatively,…
An interesting case came out of the District Court for the District of Columbia in November — and the least interesting thing about it is that it involves pornography. In Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe, the issue was whether a copyright holder can unmask an infringing user’s identity by subpoenaing the user’s internet service provider…
I’ve written before about the legal battle between the bands Led Zeppelin and Spirit. Randy Wolf of Spirit wrote a song called “Taurus” and his estate”s representative alleged that “Stairway to Heaven” infringed on the copyright of that song. According to Wolf, the opening notes of “Stairway to Heaven” were substantially similar to the opening notes of…