Last week, we discussed how intellectual property theft from China has been called an “emergency” by the Department of Justice. An emergency was declared because trade secret theft siphons off hundreds of billions of dollars from American companies every year. According to a 2013 report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, trade secret theft is
The Department of Justice (DoJ) has called Chinese intellectual property theft a “national security emergency” that has cost American companies hundreds of billions of dollars and two million jobs. According to the DoJ, Chinese espionage has stolen intellectual property from thousands of American companies. Can American companies fight back against the entire intelligence apparatus of
Paramount Pictures recently sued a pair of crowdfunded producers who are attempting to release the first independent Star Trek film. The project, which reportedly has the backing of former Star Trek actor George Takei, secured more than $1 million of funding from backers on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. Paramount Pictures spent tens of millions of dollars creating a new series
A federal judge has ruled Warner/Chappell Music does not own the copyright to “Happy Birthday”, one of the most famous songs ever created. It would be difficult to find people who have never heard of the popular song. Over the last century, the song has become a widely celebrated custom at birthday parties across the globe. The
Gearbox Software has reached a settlement with 3D Realms Entertainment and its parent company, Interceptor Entertainment, in a trademark lawsuit over the intellectual rights to the Duke Nukem video game franchise. Duke Nukem is a machine-gun wielding, alien-killing and bad-mouthed ladies’ man with an affinity for destruction. Several video games in the series have come out over
A hearing has been set in the lawsuit against famous rock band Led Zeppelin over allegations they stole the song “Stairway to Heaven”. The lawsuit alleges Led Zeppelin stole the song from Randy Craig Wolfe, a founding member of the late 1960s instrumental band, Spirit. The founding members of Spirit once claimed Led Zeppelin front
During the 1980’s, several tech companies duked it out in court over the first operating systems for personal computers. People alive at the time probably remember Apple’s computers, Lisa and Macintosh, and how they were among the first operating systems utilizing a visual display. Apple had successfully built upon Xerox’s computer, the Xerox Star, developing
The clothing designers Spirit Clothing Company filed a lawsuit against West Trend for allegedly marketing and selling clothing that contained stitching that was similar to Spirit’s clothing designs. The California Federal District Court has labeled this case as a trade dress infringement case, although the underlying complaint did not allege trade dress infringement specifically. The
Former National Football League (NFL) players are taking on the video game company Electronic Arts (EA) for using their likenesses in its Madden NFL football video game series. Former NFL quarterback Vince Ferragamo, who played professional football from 1977 through 1986, states that EA never asked his permission to use his likeness in the game.
Twenty-two-year-old English musician Sam Smith accidentally infringed on the intellectual property (IP) of the legendary American musician Tom Petty. Smith alleged that he had never heard of Petty’s 1989 song I Won’t Back Down when he wrote the melodically similar song Stay With Me, which was recently Grammy-nominated. The music industry is prone to all kinds of business litigation, because
