Scott Hervey will be speaking on "Protecting Brands in the Legally Tangled World of Keyword Advertising" at American Conference Institute’s Corporate Counsel Forum on E-Marketing and Privacy Law on March 19-20, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information go to www.americanconference.com/Intellectual_Property/emarketing.htm
Weintraub Firm
Inducing Patent Infringement Becomes More Difficult to Prove
By Weintraub Firm on
Posted in Patent Law
By Audrey Millemann
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has resolved a conflict in its precedents regarding the inducement of patent infringement, and, as a result, made the plaintiff’s burden heavier. In DSU Medical Corporation v. JMS Company, 471 F.3d 1293 (Fed. Cir. December 13, 2006), the court resolved the differences between its prior interpretations of 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) as set forth in Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Bausch & Lomb, Inc., 909 F.2d 1464 (Fed. Cir. 1990) and Manville Sales Corp. v. Paramount Systems, Inc., 917 F.2d 544 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Continue Reading Inducing Patent Infringement Becomes More Difficult to Prove
Should Ripping Your Purchased DVDs Onto Your iPod Be Illegal? The Motion Picture Association Says “Yes!”
By Weintraub Firm on
Posted in Copyright Law, Entertainment Law
By W. Scott Cameron
Last month, in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) companies[1] sued Load ‘N Go Video, a small company that loads customer purchased DVDs onto their personal iPods, for copyright infringement and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Based out of Boston, Load ‘N Go was founded in 2005 to help consumers get video content on to their portable media players, such as iPods. Load ‘N Go sells iPods and DVDs to their customers, who pay the company an additional charge to load purchased DVDs onto their iPod or other portable video player. Load ‘N Go then sends both the customized iPod and original purchased DVDs back to the customer.
[1] Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Bros Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Columbia TriStar Television and Columbia Pictures
A Refresher on the Trade Secrets Doctrine, Part I
By Weintraub Firm on
Posted in Trade Secrets
By Andrea Anapolksy
In the wake of jury selection for the Coco-Cola Co. theft trade secrets trial and Apple Computer’s two-year quest to discover who leaked trade secret information about an unreleased Apple product to several online blog sites, misappropriation of a company’s trade secrets may have become increasingly more difficult to prevent. This article will be the first of a two-part series which examines the trade secrets doctrine and recent developments related to it. This article in particular will assess the doctrine of trade secrets under California law and will offer available remedies on avoiding misappropriation. Continue Reading A Refresher on the Trade Secrets Doctrine, Part I
Settlement In Keyword / Trademark Dispute
By Weintraub Firm on
Posted in Cyberspace Law, Trademark Law
By Jeffrey Pietsch
In 2006, Federal District Courts throughout the country were asked to decide if purchasing and using trademark-protected keywords to trigger internet advertising constitute trademark violations as contemplated by the Lanham Act. Unfortunately for advertisers, these rulings were inconsistent. In 2007, this trend continues with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruling in J.G. Wentworth v. Settlement Funding, LLC, No. 06-0597 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 4, 2007). In J.G. Wentworth, the court siding with advertisers, ruled that using trademark-protected words to trigger internet advertising does not violate trademark law.Continue Reading Settlement In Keyword / Trademark Dispute