Copyright Claims Hardly Ever Go Away, But When They Do… The statute of limitations for copyright claims is three years from point from which you reasonably should have discovered the infringement. But if you file your copyright suit more than three years after that,...
One Word: Tactics My main post on the “Dark Horse” case14Which, remember, is way too early because the post-trial motions are still pending. focused on the very thin evidence of access. To my mind, that’s what the case should be reversed on. But something else has...
Our Way-Too-Early Hot Take About the “Dark Horse” Jury Verdict There was shock and indignation at the July 29 jury verdict that a song called “Dark Horse” infringed a rap song called “Joyful Noise.” The trial leading to the verdict lasted a week, but few of us...
What an Antitrust Case Can Teach Us About Design When I was in law school in the late 1990’s, it was an article of faith that the U.S. didn’t protect industrial design, but Europe did, and that’s why Europeans were so much better at it than Americans. Think, for...
Who, What, Why AND Where One of the peculiar features of the U.S. legal system is that, while certain fields are governed exclusively by federal law—i.e., law that applies everywhere in the U.S.—others are governed exclusively by state law. That means, obviously, that...
And Why Sometimes You Have to “Go to Legal” Trademarks and copyrights are really, really, really different. They do different things; they protect different interests. But they overlap in one area of subject matter: logos. The overlap is coincidental. It...
