Minnesota Intellectual Property Legal Questions

You can protect an app by protecting the Usert interface by copyright. The concept by patent, if eligible, and the code by copyright. Additionally, if you use a brand on your website, the brand may be protected by Trademark Registration, if it is eligible. Your relationship with the gentleman in Pakistan is determined by your contractual/business relationship.  Please le me know if you have any questions. Best regards, Alan M. Sack SACK IP Law p.c. Alan.Sack@SACK-IP.com... Read Answer

Trademark law is about confusion of the source of a good. If someone were to make a series of NASCAR products, the reasonable consumer belief would be that the manufacturer had an agreement with NASCAR and the products were somehow sponsored/approved by NASCAR. In this particular instance, based on the limited facts provided, the client would have knowledge that the product was not sponsored/approved by NASCAR and, thus, it is not reasonable to conclude the client would suffer confusion. It is possible to have third party confusion. A viewer of the NASCAR urn believes that NASCAR sponsored/approved the urn and then develops a negative opinion of NASCAR (because of the quality of the product or feeling the product is tacky, for example). However the damages NASCAR could claim would probably not rise to a level that would make litigation desirable. To the extent there is risk, I suspect it would relate to third party confusion. Good luck, Todd... Read Answer

Legal rights to a book vest initially in the author and can be conveyed only by a signed written document. Generally speaking, the author of the work is the person(s) who controls the creation of the work. Submission of ideas does not create authorship if you controlled which ideas were included and how they were included. An editor will often provide an author with ideas for reshaping a draft to produce a book and the contributions of the editor do not amount to authorship. When a book is made into a movie, the author of the book is not regarded as the author of the movie (although the author does have rights in the movie because it is derivative of the author's copyrights in the book). Good luck, Todd... Read Answer

Based on the heading, I read your question to be "[with these facts], can you use company logos without their permission?" The facts you've laid out relate to fair use for trademark infringement. There are other ways to infringe a trademark, such as through dillution. Also, without knowing how you are using the logo, it is difficult to know whether your use could fall under a fair use exception for copyright. It is possible to reprint a company logo without permission and without being guilty of trademark or copyright infringement. If Time magazine was doing a story on Coca-Cola, it could arguably use their logo on the front cover of the magazine without permission and without infringing their IP rights. You can look up copyright fair use on Wikipedia and get a reasonable sense of the rules. Good luck, Todd... Read Answer

That is the idea. The basic concept is that, if the open source software creators are making their work non-proprietary, they want your uses to be non-proprietary as well. You'd have to review the full terms of the license to determine what, if anything, the software creators did wish to control as proprietary, but the quoted language cuts a broad swath.... Read Answer

It is important to remember that the law of copyright protects expression, not facts. It is permissible for you to refer to, write about, and create motion pictures concerning the life of a deceased public figure without permission of anyone who has previously written about that person. This is so even if you propose to quote in insubstantial part from a previous work of authorship regarding that person. Having a letter of "no objection" (which constitutes, in publishing parlance, "permission") to quote from the newspaper protects you against copyright-infringement claims with respect to that newspaper only, provided that you limit your activities to the permitted ones that you requested. But you would have broad rights even without such a letter. Contact my office if you are interested in professional legal advice regarding this matter.... Read Answer

This situation involves the legal concept of "implied license." The logo is not licensed to your grandpa; it's licensed to his former employer. The company that is the licensee did not have any reason to expect that its license was terminable at the time it was granted. It appears that you intended to grant this license unconditionally. You cannot seek to impose conditions now.... Read Answer