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Category Archives: Intellectual Property
Internet users throughout America (and in much of the world too) are by now familiar with two infamous pieces of legislation that are working their way through our Congress – the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (“PIPA”). The issues surrounding the laws caused multiple leading internet sites to close down on Wednesday of last week. Taking part in the protest were popular sites like Reddit, BoingBoing and the English-language version of Wikipedia. There is no doubt that SOPA and PIPA deal with an important issue – copyright infringement – but many technology companies and internet users feel that they go too far. SOPA and PIPA did come from the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, two organizations that often made negative headlines for their aggressive pursuit of alleged file sharers of copyrighted music and movies. With SOPA and…
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Perhaps the biggest event of the year for computer and video game fans is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as “E3,” that takes place each summer at the Los Angeles Convention Center. 2012’s E3 will be taking place June 5-7. The first E3 in 1995 drew over 80,000 visitors who came to get a preview of forthcoming games and to see the latest in hardware developments. The gathering has since changed to invite-only for industry professionals, but the buzz surrounding E3 has continued to grow nevertheless. Numerous media sites like IGN and Gamespot cover the event live, and one network, G4, even broadcasts live during the week of the event. An important issue for E3 and the entity behind the expo, the Entertainment Software Association, is piracy and for good reason – some estimate the losses due to piracy amount to almost $10 billion a year worldwide. While…
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Many trademark courtroom battles involve descriptive trademarks that acquire secondary meaning. These marks require secondary meaning because, unlike fanciful or other marks with an inherent uniqueness or creativity, they do not automatically receive trademark protection. Descriptive marks require something more, and courts look to secondary meaning to determine whether a mark has achieved that extra something in the public’s mind. An example of a descriptive mark that acquired secondary meaning that we have mentioned in the past is the fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken. Originally, Kentucky Fried Chicken simply described a location and the way that the restaurant prepared its food. Kentucky Fried Chicken became associated with the fast food restaurant to such an extent in consumers’ minds, though, that it acquired enough secondary meaning to merit trademark protection. Here are some of the factors that courts and the US Patent and Trademark Office consider when determining whether your…
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