Juli Adams, the creator of the plush pet toys “Angry Birds,” filed a lawsuit after The Hartz Mountain Company sold her intellectual property to Rovio Entertainment, a video game company. Adams had originally designed her toys for Hartz. Adams claims that she has the trademark for “Angry Birds,” while Hartz claims that it has the rights to her designs
Hothead’s game app Kill Shot is beating Glu Mobile’s game app, Deer Hunter, by eight spots in a list of Apple’s top-grossing games for the iTunes App Store. However, Hothead could lose to Glu Mobile in a copyright and trade dress infringement lawsuit. The argument by Glu Mobile is that the games are identical, except that Kill Shot
In 1999, Congress passed the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) as an amendment to the Lanham Act. The bill defined cybersquatters as people who register a trademark with “bad faith intent to profit” from it, or anyone who traffics in “protected” domain names. The ACPA is being invoked in the case of Petrolium Nasional Berhad,
Even though they seem free and open to use, internet memes are subject to the same copyright laws as any general advertisement. Therefore, a company wishing to profit from a trademarked meme should get an appropriate license to use any photo, video or music in a standard advertisement. There may be an exception if the
According to NBC 7 San Diego, Shawne Merriman is suing Nike over a new line of athletic clothing, claiming the company is infringing on his trademarked nickname “Lights Out”. According to the suit, Merriman and Nike were in negotiations to start a clothing brand with his trademark phrase, but nothing official was ever decided. Nike
We have been closely following the unfolding of the Apple and Samsung patent infringement case. Previously, we discussed how Apple is suing Samsung for $2 billion on the grounds that the latter infringed on Apple’s patents, such as slide-to-unlock, word correction, contextual links, universal search and data syncing. Samsung responded by calling to the stand
Apple and Samsung are finally butting heads in the courtroom over the patent infringement case that has been two years in the works. Apple is demanding $2 billion from Samsung for infringing on the following patents: slide-unlock to prevent pocket dialing, word correction, contextual links, universal phone search capability and data syncing. Samsung is also
The U.S. government has taken bold measures to crack down on the distribution of counterfeit apps. Illegally distributing counterfeit apps is clearly copyright infringement. On Monday, March 24, the two men responsible for AppBucket pled guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. AppBucket was a popular website that sold counterfeit Android apps at low prices.
A coalition of trademark holders can register a collective mark to signify membership. Most of the time this practice is used by a group of businesses whose goods or services are produced at a common level of quality. For instance, if there is a long history of independent carpenters in rural Vermont who use a
The popular rapper and producer Kanye West is suing a group of programmers behind the new digital currency COINYE, according to a recent report by the New York Daily News. COINYE is a decentralized digital currency similar to Bitcoin. Upon initially learning of the new currency, Mr. West’s lawyers filed a cease-and-desist letter on January 6.
