New York Intellectual Property Legal Questions

There are very few lawyers who engage in this kind of "pitching," but many licensing agents. You may wish to discuss with an attorney how to protect your invention while shopping it. In general, lawyers tending to be better at lawyering than "pitching," and it may be difficult to find an attorney to partner with you on this. Good luck in any event.... Read More

Generally speaking, employees of a tortfeasor cannot be sued merely because they are employed there. However, responsible officers and directors who actually participate in the wrongs being committed may be liable. Under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which generally governs false advertising claims at the federal level, persons and entities that operate in a common enterprise may be held liable for one another's deceptive acts and practices. FTC v. Think Achievement Corp., 144 F.Supp.2d 993, 1011 (N.D. Ind. 2000).... Read More

THe answer is "it depends." The standard for infringement is whether an appreciable number of ordinary consumers of the "original" rap group's music would be confused into believing that your music was produced by, or originated with, or sponsored or endorsed by the "original" group. That is a fact-intensive determination that cannot be resolved from the limited facts you have posted. The simple and safe answer is: change your name.... Read More

This is an unsettled area of law that will be reconsidered by the Supreme Court next term. As a general matter, the current state of the law in most of the U.S. is that only books manufactured in the United States may be imported under the first sale doctrine. If you are taking the orders for infringing books, you may be deemed a contributory infringer, even if you do not print or distribute the books.... Read More

There is no Intellectual Property Office. Copyrights are filed at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. See www.copyright.gov. Trademarks are filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office. See www.uspto.gov. Each has different procedures. In very, very brief terms, copyright is for artistic or literary creation; trademark (or service mark) is to identify the source of a product or service. Both sites have excellent educational resources to learn more about what may be registered and how. ... Read More

The "author" (in this case, you) always owns the copyright in his own work. You own the copyright in the photos you took. Since they have not paid you and have repudiated their agreement with you, they do not have the right to copy, reproduce, publish or do any of the other things that a copyright owner can authorize. All of the above does not mean they cannot sue you. Anyone can sue anyone for anything. If you think these photos are likely to be commercially important, you should discuss your situation with an attorney.... Read More

This is a great question. Some literary characters are covered by the law of trademark, but there is no known trademark in Peter Pan covering any literary use. Thus, as  long as your work of authorship is original with you, you may have it include a character in the work with that name. ... Read More

Copyrights provide the owner of a copyright with a package of rights that are separate from ownership of the actual work. For example, one of the rights provide by a copyright is a performance right which a person does not acquire simply by purchasing a book or movie. Thus, if you were to buy a DVD containing movie, you could not use it to show the movie people and charge them a fee to watch the movie without a license from the copyright owner. In a like manner, simply buying several children''s DVDs would not give you the right to rent them out for a monthly subscription charge with a license from the owner of the copyright for the works on the DVDs.... Read More

There are potentially a number of copyright issues in a photograph, even one taken by you. You have to look at what is contained in the photograph and see if you are copying something that itself is protected by copyright. This can range from sculptures to paintings to even buildings, if those buildings are on private property and not viewable from a publicly accessible area and were built after a certain date. Copyright is not your only consideration. You also need to check for trademarks and for the rights of privacy of persons who are in your photograph. For trademarks, you cannot use someone else's trademark in a way that makes it appear that they are associated with or endorse you or your product without their permission. People have similar rights to keep their images from being used without permission to endorse someone's product or service. In general, the commercial nature of your intended use makes it more important to clear everything before using the photograph to generate revenue, In certain instances, private uses may be protected but a commercial use tips the scales in many cases to impermissible use.  ... Read More

My suggestion is that you make an effort to find out exactly what the rules of the "ideas" program are. Normally, when an employee submits an idea to his employer that is related to the employer's business, the idea belongs to the employer without any obligation of compensation. My guess is that your employer's "ideas" program actually has rules, and that those rules leave the issue of compensation, if any, to your employer's sole discretion -- at least that's what they usually say.... Read More

From what you ask, it appears that you are asking if you can use "Not Google" as an identifier of your goods or services. This is a trademark use. Under trademark law, you can only use someone else's trademark as a "fair use" if you are using those words descriptively, for example the words are otherwise used to describe common objects. For example, you can use the word "apple" to describe the fruit and the company cannot stop you from using it in that way. In some courts, there is also "nominative" fair use where you can use someone else's trademark to refer to the actual trademark owner or its goods/services. It doesn't sound as if you are doing either of those here. Copyright does not seem to be implicated from what you have asked, however if you decide to pursue this further I strongly suggest you consult an intellectual property attorney.... Read More

When a collaborative work is prepared, the copyright in the collaborative work does not extend to the copyrights in the individual works that make up the overall work. It is possible that the copying, public display, etc. of a collaborative work infringes the copyright of one or more of the copyrights of the individual works in the collaborative work. The answer to your question will probably depend on the agreement that the project has with the owner of the copyright in the individual work. If the agreement gives a license to the individual work in the collaborative work, then the DMCA claim shouldn't stand because the project has authorization to the individual work. This license could be written, or it could be oral. There may be a fair use here, there really aren't enough facts to tell. Fair use depends on a lot of factors, the non-commercial aspect being only one of them. You should consult an attorney knowledgeable of copyright law to answer your questions. ... Read More

It is impossible to answer your question based on the limited information you have provided. The compensation you might obtain could be zero or some substantial number, depending on factors which you have not set forth, including, most importantly, the economic value of the "stolen" business name and idea to the infringers. You should consult with an attorney who practices in this area to determine whether you have any remedy at all (i.e., whether your ideas and name are insufficiently original, or were insufficiently treated confidentially by you, or have otherwise come into the public domain) and, if so, how to proceed.... Read More

It depends on the copyright status of the picture you download. As a general matter, the Copyright Act prohibits most forms of commercial copying. If the picture is subject to a copyright, then if you "copy" it and sell it, with or without a frame, you are making unpermitted copies and are subject to damages, attorneys' fees and other relief if the owner of the copyright decides to sue you. You can avoid this result by using only pictures that are in the public domain (in general, that were created a very long time ago) or by using pictures with respect to which you have received permission or a license.... Read More

A cursing goat is no laughing matter...well, okay...it is kinda funny.  However, your question focuses on what rights you have to your goat's image.  Legal rights to images are generally protected under copyright law.  Copyright law provides the exclusive legal right to an originator to prevent (or allow) others from printing, publishing, performing, filming or recording literary, artistic, or musical material.  Accordingly, your goat must fit under one of these categories, i.e.: literary, artistic or musical material.  So, unless your goat is a sculpture that you crafted, you have no rights in your goat's image.  However, there may be other legal theories under which you can seek relief.  For example, if the baaaaaaad kid (double pun intended) trespassed onto your property to take the video, you could have a legal remedy under the torts of trespass to property or invasion of privacy.  Also, if the video of the cursing goat is intended to injure your reputation by exposing you to hatred, contempt or ridicule, you could have a legal remedy under the tort of libel. Depending upon the exact circumstances, remedies may also be available under the torts of slander or defamation. One interesting note: the hoodlum who got your goat cursing now has a copyright in their original and dubbed recordings.... Read More

The Copyright Act gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to copy the copyright work. It also, very importantly, gives that owner the exclusive right to create,copy and sell derivative works. The subtitled version of the movie is a derivative work. The copies you are making (by copying to your hard drive) are not authorized by the copyright owner. I understand that this seems like an immaterial matter, but the key here is the distributor of the fan sub is distributing illegal copies, and you are copying an illegal copy to your hard drive.... Read More

Fair-use claims are always extremely fact-intensive. The answer will depend in significant part on the arguably most important of the fair-use factors, which is the economic impact on the copyright owner of your copying. Also, in order to qualify as a parody, you must actually make fun of the original, not merely change it in some way. There is quite a bit of law on this issue, including a Supreme Court case. In deciding whether to attempt to oppose the DMCA takedown notice, what's in it for you? Does this clip have commercial value for you? If so, that would tend to militate in favor of the other side's position. We practice in this area. Feel free to call my office at (203) 399-1320 if you want to engage us in connection with this issue.... Read More

As a general matter, formulas are not capable of being protected under the laws of either patent or copyright. You can protect such a formula by keeping it secret, and then it may, under appropriate circumstances, be capable of being protected under the laws that apply to trade secrets. It will, of course, be necessary for people who have access to the formula to take steps to preserve its confidentiality, and the coach will want to have everyone who has access to the formula sign a confidentiality agreement. None of this, of course, will prevent anyone else from independently developing the same or a similar formula. ... Read More