Blue Ivy Carter Gets Star Treatment From The Feds
By Rimon Admin | May 21, 2012
In what world do parents name their kid Blue Ivy? That could only happen in a world where a usually reputable media outlet devotes an entire webpage to the child, which could only happen in a world where an unauthorized U.S. Federal trademark registration application for a mark comprised in part of the child’s name gets filed, examined and abandoned all in 11 days. Why, this world looks a lot like Hollywood; not the city, mind you, so much as the mentality.
Social Enterprise, Health And Wellness, And The Law: A New Frontier
By Carson Porter | May 21, 2012
There is a movement afoot in the for-profit social enterprise world and new business forms are being crafted to meet the objectives of these social entrepreneurs. They may not be right for all businesses; but, for those who want to create what we might call “enlightened profits” the legal community is creating new business formats to assist. Stay tuned, because this movement will only grow bigger and stronger.
The LAST BEST PLACE That Doesn’t Need a Trademark Registration
By Rimon Admin | May 21, 2012
Why obey federal trademark law (aka the Lanham Act) when you can just pass a new law that exempts you from it? Montana’s Senators sure are slick and I’m betting the Last Best Beef wishes it had a beef with any other State besides Montana!
Instead of federally registering and enforcing its rights in Montana’s slogan, THE LAST BEST PLACE, in 2005 Montana Senators Conrad Burns and Max Baucus got Congress to pass a law prohibiting the use of “federal funds” for trademark registration of the term during the following fiscal year. Never mind that the USPTO is a fully user-fee funded agency. This provision was included in an appropriations bill to prevent any funds that the government allocates to the PTO — as in all of its user fees — from being used to register THE LAST BEST PLACE.
Trolls, Wizards, and the Pitfalls of Patenting
By Bruce Abramson | May 08, 2012
Patents are back in the news. In the past few weeks alone, Microsoft bought AOL’s patent portfolio for $1 billion, then resold much of it to Facebook for $550 million. Twitter pledged to use its patents only defensively, and to give its employee-inventors a say in the company’s future patent litigation strategy. Controversial trials, appeals, rulings, and awards continue—prompting the Wall Street Journal to publish Andy Kessler’s call for curtailing the rights of non-practicing entities (NPEs), also known affectionately as “trolls.”