In the bustling craft brew transparenteconomy brewers are faced with new issues every day. One that recently came to my attention arises when the craft brewery’s brewmaster or head brewer decides to either start his own craft brewery, or go to work for another brewery. While this may not initially seem like a big deal, it gets much more complicated when that brewmaster or brewer is responsible for the creation of your flagship brew. The question arises: who owns the intellectual property rights to that brew? Of course, the brewery is going to say that they have been selling, distributing, and promoting the brew, so it must be theirs. On the other hand, the brewer is going to say that he created it, so it must be his. The truth is that determining who owns the intellectual property rights to the brew formula can get quite complicated, encompassing numerous factors. But it does not have to be.

With a booming industry such as craft brew, it is imperative that the appropriate precautions be taken to protect the craft brewery’s most lucrative asset: the beer itself. In order to protect a brew formula from being taken from your company and utilized by a competitor when one of your brewers, the creator of the formula or not, leaves the company, the formula must be treated as a trade secret. The California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“UTSA”) defines a trade secret as:

information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, or technique, or process, that:
(1) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to the public, or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and
(2) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.

Continue Reading Hey, that’s my beer! I think…

Patents covering software for use in the financial industryAudrey-Millemann-03_web are increasingly being invalidated by the courts. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), district courts are holding these patents invalid on the grounds that they are unpatentable abstract ideas, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is affirming the district courts’ decisions.

Patents may cover one of four statutory categories of inventions: (1) machines; (2) articles of manufacture; (3) processes; and (4) compositions of matter. 35.U.S.C. §101. These types of inventions are called “patent-eligible subject matter.” The longstanding exceptions to these four categories are: natural phenomena, laws of nature, and abstract ideas. These types of inventions are called “patent-ineligible subject matter.”

In Alice Corp., the Supreme Court established a two-part test to determine the patentability of claims directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. The first step is to decide whether the claims in the patent are directed to patent ineligible subject matter, such as an abstract idea. If so, the second step is to determine whether the elements of the claim transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.

Two recent cases illustrate the trend. In both cases, the claims covered software for use in the financial industry, as was true of the claims invalidated in Alice Corp.

Continue Reading Federal Circuit Continues to Nix Financial Patents

Michael Jordan is considered by many  to be the greatest basketball player of all time. Beyond his five MVP trophies and six NBA championship rings, however Jordan also was the one of the most widely marketed athletic personalities in history. His name and image ultimately became iconic when Nike developed a new type of basketball shoe named “Air Jordan,” marked with the “Jumpman” logo – a silhouetted image of Jordan in mid-flight on his way to delivering a one-handed slam dunk.

Jordan’s fame knows almost no boundaries. He and former Houston Rockets star Yao Ming are the most popular international basketball stars in China, where Jordan is known as “Qiaodan.” Not surprisingly, and in the marked absence of any “Air Ming” footwear, Air Qiaodan sneakers have become popular in China. “Air Qiaodan” products are not endorsed or backed by Michael Jordan, rather they are manufactured and distributed by Qiaodan Sports Co. Beyond merely using Jordan’s Chinese name, Qiaodan’s products carry a logo closely resembling the “Jumpman” used on Nike’s “Air Jordan” products.

Believing that Qiaodan’s actions were causing confusion among Chinese consumers by misleading them into believing that Qiaodan Sports Co. was affiliated with His Airness, Jordan sought to cancel Qiaodan’s trademark. The Chinese lower courts refused to cancel Qiaodan’s trademarks, and the case was appealed to the Beijing Higher People’s Court. The Beijing Higher People’s Court has now ruled against Jordan.

Continue Reading Air Jordan Grounded in China

Pending before the 9th CircuitScott-Hervey-10-web is a case which may change the landscape for online copyright protection. The case, Lenz v. Universal, may make it more difficult for copyright owners to protect against infringement in today’s environment of hyper infringement. Defenders of Lenz argue that this case represents the quest for a legitimate balance between overzealous copyright enforcement and legitimate, non-infringing use.

The facts of Lenz are fairly simple. Lenz posted to YouTube a very short video of her young child dancing to a Prince song playing in the background. At the time, Universal Music Publishing was managing Prince’s music publishing. An attorney at Universal manually reviewed the posting but acknowledged that he did not consider whether the Lenz video was fair use. Universal sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube and YouTube removed access to the video. Most normal takedown situations end there; however, Lenz was upset and, after trying and failing to remedy the situation herself, sought the aid of attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The DMCA was enacted in 1999 as an attempt by Congress to stem the tide of rampant online copyright infringement. The DMCA offered copyright owners a streamlined process for taking down from the Internet allegedly infringing material and online service providers had great incentive to follow the process laid out in the DMCA; to not do so opened one up to potential secondary liability for their users’ activities. Congress included a requirement that the allegation of infringement in a takedown notice include a statement that the sender had a good faith belief that the posting of the allegedly infringing content was not authorized by law. Specifically, Section 512(c)(3)(A)(v) requires a takedown notice to include “[a] statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”

Continue Reading Will Lenz v. Universal Make Online Copyright Enforcement More Challenging for Copyright Owners