By Jeff Pietsch

Last week Keith Urban, the Grammy nominated country singer from Australia, sued Keith Urban, a New Jersey painter, for use of the website www.keithurban.com. The suit filed in federal court alleges that Keith Urban, the painter, is infringing on the singer’s trademark rights by misleading internet users into believing that the website is owned by the singer. The website, which has been owned and registered by the painter since 1999, sells oil paintings through the website. Upon entering the site users see the following: “You have reached the site of Keith Urban. To those who don’t know, oil painting is one of my hobbies.” Users are then directed to a link which displays several paintings. The singer claims this use infringes on the Keith Urban trademark by violating the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, the Federal Trademark Dilution Act, and federal unfair competition laws. This article will examine the claims against the painter under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

Continue Reading Will the Real Keith Urban Stand Up: A showdown in Cybersquatting

By Audrey Millemann

        The Supreme Court has expanded the rights of licensees to challenge the validity of the patents being licensed and the terms of their licenses. In MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 127 S.Ct. 764 (January 9, 2007), the Court addressed the question of whether a licensee of a patent was required to terminate or breach the license in order to obtain a declaratory of judgment of invalidity, unenforceability, or noninfringement. 

Continue Reading Supreme Court: Licensees Can Sue for Invalidity

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

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

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

Continue Reading Should Ripping Your Purchased DVDs Onto Your iPod Be Illegal? The Motion Picture Association Says “Yes!”