Answer – a trademark dispute.
The on-line entertainment news site, TMZ.com, reported on a brewing dispute between World Wrestling Entertainment and Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling television program which airs on CMT. IP Law Bloger Scott Hervey is counsel for the program.
Click this link to the TMZ news posting: >>>>To TMZ
In Grand Theft Auto trademark infringement case is the 1st Amendment a devense to a claim of trademark infringement involving a virtual strip club?
Continue Reading Grand Theft Auto: Trademark Infringement and the First Amendment
By Dale C. Campbell
The 2008 presidential election is just two weeks away. The candidates have discussed everything from foreign policy, the economy, the war in Iraq, washed-up homeland terrorists, and where you find the “real” America. But where do the candidates stand with respect to intellectual property protection?
For those of you who are interested, and the mere fact that you are continuing to read this article means that you are, a little-publicized conference sponsored by the IP section of the Colorado Bar was held in August 2008, during which two surrogates for Senator McCain and two circuits for Senator Obama discussed their respective candidates’ positions on topics of interest to the IP bar. A video presentation of the discussion can be if you search: IP Policy and the Presidential Debate Video Replay.Continue Reading PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS AND IP
By Audrey A. Millemann
Last month, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals revised the test for infringement for the design patent. The new test, set forth in Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. (Fed. Cir, September 22, 2008), will make it easier for design patent holders to prove infringement.
In Egyptian Goddess, the plaintiff, EGI, sued the defendant, Swisa, in the Northern District of Texas for infringement of its design patent covering a rectangular, hollow nail buffer. Swisa moved for summary judgment of noninfringement. The court applied the two tests which a plaintiff must satisfy to prove infringement: (1) that the allegedly infringing product is substantially similar to the claimed design under the “ordinary observer” test; and (2) that the allegedly infringing product contains “substantially the same points of novelty that distinguished the patent design from the prior art.” The district court granted the motion, finding that Swisa’s nail buffer did not include the point of novelty of EGI’s patented design.Continue Reading Design Patents are Now Stronger
By Scott Cameron
Intellectual property law is governed by an assortment of federal laws and also several state laws. Trademarks, trade dress, copyrights, patents, and antitrust are all protected by federal statutes and a complaint alleging a violation of these rights can usually be filed in or removed to federal court. Therefore, intellectual law practitioners are generally accustomed to litigating in federal court. Among other aspects of federal practice, IP litigators are usually familiar with the well known “notice pleading” requirement for a federal complaint.
Under the notice pleading standard, a complaint will not be dismissed for failure to state a claim so long as it puts the defendant on notice of the gravamen of the plaintiff’s complaint and includes the “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief” called for in Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Detailed factual allegations are not required to survive a challenge to the complaint. The U.S. Supreme Court set out the pleading requirement decades ago in a case that has been almost universally cited ever since. In Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957), the Court laid down what it termed “the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Federal courts have applied that standard for 50 years to refuse to dismiss complaints containing only the barest of allegations. Continue Reading Plausibility – Is It The New Pleading Standard In Federal Courts?
