The Statute of Limitations Burns on Both Ends
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,...
If “Dark Horse” Is Just “Moments in Love,” How Could it Infringe “Joyful Noise”?
What Went Wrong in the “Dark Horse” Case? Let’s Start with the Jury Instructions
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[ref]Always described as a “Christian” rap song, but I’m unclear what the religion has to do...
The Ugly Truth About Protecting Designs in the U.S.
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...
The Inevitable but Ordinary Messiness of American Law: When State Laws Clash
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...
Beware the Hidden Klaw: Nike and Kawhi Leonard Explain the Differences Between Copyrights and Trademarks
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 doesn’t mean...
CCPA Who? Nevada beats California to the Punch With its Revised Consumer Data Protection Law
While California still irons out the details of its highly anticipated Consumer Privacy Act and leaves data brokers holding their breath about whether it will include a private right of action, last week Nevada just took the lead from its Western neighbor in giving...
Lacy Copyright Opinion Isn’t Very Racy
When 330,000 Yards of Lace Still Isn't Enough This is a copyright case involving lace designs. Yes, lace designs. Have I mentioned before the tremendous breadth of the subject matter of copyright? The same law that protects “Thank You, Next” and random medical...
Modernized Convention 108 on Data Protection has introduced more confusion
In studying for my CIPP/E Certification, I had to learn about a myriad of treaties and directives that existed in Europe prior to the GDPR. One of those was Convention 108, the first legally binding international instrument in the area of data protection. Convention...
Court Demands an Almost Impossible Level of Diligence to Protect Trade Secrets
The Perils of Believing People Are Generally Honest This is the sort of case that keeps lawyers up at night and, if taken seriously, increases litigation and litigation-avoidance costs. It's the sort of case that makes lawyers ask, "Is this just a bizarre outlier, or...
Who Gets the Technology When the Brilliant Founder Dies?
The Dilemma: You Can't Take It. But You Don't Think the Company Can Survive. Imagine you’re an engineer in a company that relies heavily on the technology you’ve developed and keep developing for the company. Although you make good money from it, it’s also a labor of...
The Perils of Trademark Licensing, Starring the Kardashians
The Real Lesson from the Kardashian-Kroma Trademark Dispute So this is about that trademark case against the Kardashian sisters, which is what has made it newsworthy. However, since most of aren’t Kardashians, and are more likely to be in the position of the other...
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Which, remember, is way too early because the post-trial motions are still pending. |
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