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Monthly Archives: November 2011
Advertising costs are often the first thing to come to mind when people think of what a business spends its dollars. When it costs several million dollars to advertise for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, it is true that businesses are willing to spend a lot money letting consumers know about their products. For most businesses, though, trademark costs exceed costs related to advertising and marketing. Businesses will spend millions for decades trying to establish their trademark and then vigorously protecting it in courts. They also often use psychologists and cutting-edge research to sum up their business with a simple picture (think of Apple’s or Nike’s logo, for instance). As far as the businesses are concerned, their trademark development costs are worth every penny if as soon as a young child thinks about a hamburger, he or she immediately thinks of McDonald’s and its golden arches. A picture (an…
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The Teachings of Don Juan is a 1968 anthropology book by Carlos Castaneda that continues to inspire many followers. Castaneda said that the book documents his time between 1960 and 1965 with a Yaqui sorcerer (the Yaqui are a Native American tribe from northern Mexico). Castaneda used a term “tensegrity” to refer to several meditative stretches that he and his followers employ. They founded a company called Cleargreen Incorporated in 1995 to teach tensegrity throughout the world. Our Los Angeles business litigation attorneys are now representing the only heir of Castaneda in a copyright infringement case against Cleargreen over the use of tensegrity. Castaneda’s sole descendant was Nuri Alexander, whom Castaneda adopted as his daughter. Nuri in turn adopted Aerin Alexander, Nuri’s only child. Castaneda shared his tensegrity knowledge with his granddaughter Aerin before he passed away in 1998. Joining Aerin is plaintiff Miles Reid, who trained under Castaneda for…
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Ever since the infamous Napster music downloading service came out in 1999, internet downloading technologies and copyright holders have battling it out in courts. The technologies that internet users employ to download copyrighted works have changed, but have revolved around various forms of peer-to-peer (“P2P” as it is known on the internet) technologies. As each new development slightly changes the technology involved, companies are in a seemingly never-ending battle to have courts determine what type of activity makes a downloader liable. BitTorrents are one of the more popular methods of P2P downloading available today, and every industry has been taking aim at it. By some estimates, half of all internet traffic is due to BitTorrent activity. Movies and music are a popular download for BitTorrent users, but books are also widely available via torrents, and one publisher is trying to stop its losses due to downloading. John Wiley and Sons…
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