Texas Intellectual Property Legal Questions

You need to retain an anti-counterfeiting lawyer to prepare a reply letter for you.  The letter would say that you have immediately stop selling the counterfeiting goods,  that you did not know they were counterfeit and that you will not sell these same goods again.  This type of letter will usually resolve the dispute.... Read More

I suggest you not use in your novel the real names of any of your characters.  Also, do not use the name of Olstein's church or give its exact location or the name of the street it is on.  I suggest you take into account that the church was formerly a basketball stadium for the Houston Rockets.  Therefore, it has a large seating capacity but not many rooms suitable for hurricane refugees to sleep, live and eat.  You might also paint the minister as being compassionate but he did not think his facility was suitable for housing refugees. Also, I suggest you include a disclaimer in the beginning of the book saying that the names, dialog, and characters are fictional although the occurrences described are based in general on a factual occurrence in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. I suggest you have a lawyer with deep experience in copyright law and defamation law review the disclaimer, your story outline and one or two completed chapters of the manuscript before you complete the manuscript. If you give any interviews that may be broadcast or published in print, I suggest you have a carefully scripted account and that you adhere religiously to the script.   Before the interview, I also suggest you have the script reviewed by a lawyer with deep experience in copyright law and defamation law. If you are going to have a well-known publisher handle your novel, that publisher will have experienced legal counsel to review your manuscript for potential legal claims against both you and the publisher.... Read More

Viewing copyrighted material is not an act of infringement.  Consuming copyrighted media might include adapting a copyrighted work is and infringement.  For example, creating a variation or translation of the work is an infringement. Also, playing  a motion picture or a  recorded song, other than in your home, is an infringment.  A person cannot be prosecuted if he doesn't copy, save or dowload the copyrighted material unless he commits one of these other acts I just mentioned. Let me know if you have any more questions. Paul Van Slyke paul@hooverslovacek.com... Read More

The STARWARS trademark is owned by Disney for motion pictures and various promotional merchandise.  Whether your use of STARWARS on your website is an infringement depends on how you use it and with what goods services.  It also would depend on whether you use the same font as in the Desney trademark.... Read More

As a basic premise, a person who takes photographs becomes the owner (absent a written agreement to the contrary) of the legal copyright interests in and to the photographs taken and thus, as the owner, has certain legal rights to use of the photographs.  However, there are various legal principals that may limit or restrict the basic premise set forth above.  Based on the facts that you have presented, I would have a number of additional questions in order to be able to try to answer your questions.  For instance, I understand you were an independent contractor working as project manager on a jobsite.  The company that employed you may very well have an agreement with the owner/developer of the property with regard to photographs of the property, development of the property etc, such that your employer had no right to have you or anyone else take photographs (even if the employer did not know you were doing it).  Similarly, many construction/development contracts contain specific provisions pertaining to intellectual property rights including architectural designs, construction plans and drawings, etc.  Many owners/developers of properties specifically restrict and control who has the legal right to take photographs of a project under development and where and how those photographs can be used.  If your photographs contain an image of a company name, logo, trademark, you could have another issue concerning misuse or infringement of another's trademark or other IP assets.  In short, the specific answer to your question is likely to depend on the specific facts and circumstances of your situation, and not entirely on what you did or did not sign with your immediate employer.  I would need to have more information to best respond to your inquiry.... Read More

You state that you are the owner of a trademark, but have you federal registered the trademark? If not, your rights might be limited to the areas in which you are doing business. If you have not federal registered the trademark, have you conducted a search to see if any of the other companies have done so? Have you done any investigation to establish that the other companies have not been using the trademark for a longer time than you have or at least for several years? You need to consult with a trademark attorney, not only to have the attorney evaluate whether or not the marks as used might be confusingly similar (the standard for infringment), but to determine the answers to the questions that i have posed.  What you need done is way beyond the scope of the free assistance that can be provided via this site.... Read More

Plagiarism, in and of itself, is not a crime. At most, it is an academic matter and should be taken up with the school. You may have a separate claim for copyright infringement. You should take your original work to a copyright (or intellectual property) local to you along with a detailed explanation of the material taken and determine if you have a claim for copyright infringement and, if so, what your options are. Many attorneys will offer a free consultation, which will provide more useful information than you will obtain from a question in this forum for your particular situation. Good luck, Todd... Read More

you statement of facts is contradictory.  First you state that you own the domain to the"x".com but then you state that another company owns the domain "x".com. Which is correct.  If you want to have a domain and a company name that is the same, assuming that another company owns a domain that is the same as your preferred company name, you need to either buy the domain from the other company or choose a name that is available both as a company name and as a domain; while the mere ownership of a domain by another would not necessarily preclude you from using the name as a company name, it might place restrictions on your use of the name, especially if the name is also used by the other company as a trademark.  I think you need to discuss specific detailed facts with a trademark attorney before making any final decisions.... Read More

Your needs exceed what can be done as answer to a question on this site. You have patent, copyright, trademark issues to consider, both in the US and in foreign countries.  You should contact an intellectual property attorney you can sit down with you an develop a strategy for protecting your company's intellectual property taking into consideration the amount of money you can devote to do so.... Read More

A declaratory judgment is not a proper filing unless you are disputing something. I can't think of a situation in which I would initiate any legal action against someone who was complicit with my demands. In my mind, something is missing from the information you have laid out. I would suggest trying to get a free consultation with someone in Texas, showing them your facts, and seeking guidance. I don't know how close you are to Dallas, but I would try www.parmarlawoffice.com. I went to law school with the owner and I suspect she would give you that free consultation and could then assist you in resolving the matter expeditiously. Good luck, Todd... Read More

You need to speak with a Texas attorney who can tell you whether this sort of behavior violates Rights of Privacy or Identify Theft laws. There have been cases in California in which revenge porn was found to violate identify theft laws. Of course, everyone knows Texas and California do not share ideologies.... Read More

You are describing something not too far from Napster or some of the similar companies that followed. If you make a copy of copyright protected works or enable the copying of copyright protected works, you run the risk of being sued for copyright infringement. If you only do it with a couple of people, you will fly under the radar. If you create the opportunity for it to grow, it will either fail or rise above the radar and you will get sued.... Read More

The risk in this type of situation is in your marketing. You either have to avoid using their cooler trademarks in your marketing or you need to be very careful in how you do use it so that you do not confuse consumers into believing your company and their company are related. I have a cover for my iPhone that is not made by Apple and it doesn't allow the Apple trademark to show through. Good luck, Todd... Read More

Hi Christopher, You need to ask why they are making the comparison. There is a concept in copyrights called 'scenes a faire' (look it up in wikipedia). The idea is that there are a limited number of story details and utilizing a similar combination of generic details does not amount to copyright infringement. Captain Marvel or Hyperion do not infringe DC Comic's Superman. Moon Knight does not infringe on Batman. Cheetah/Tigra. Mr. Fantastic/Plasticman. I haven't looked at your page, but if your character is black, a youth, and has an electricity-based power set, you are going to draw a comparison to Static and that doesn't make it copyright infringement. If there is more to it, you might want to develop a few differences because, ultimately, you want your character judged by how you develop him and not through comparisons to other characters. Good luck, Todd... Read More

J.M. Barrie's works containing Peter Pan are no longer under copyright protection. Works created and published before 1928 had a shorter copyright life than works created today. Peter Pan works that have come from Disney are under copyright protection. To the extent that Disney contributions have modified elements of Peter Pan or the story, they own copyrights in those modifications. If you create a Peter Pan anything, you will garner the interest of Disney and I expect they will look to see what if any elements of their contributions have been taken by you, giving them grounds for an action. I would also look into any trademarks Disney may own relating to Peter Pan and, particularly, video games.... Read More

If someone is using your copyrighted images (that you own) on Facebook without your permission, you have a copyright infringement suit. Depending on the state laws in Texas, you likely have other causes of action as well relating to identity theft. A successful copyright infringement suit will pay your reasonable attorney fees and statutory damages ranging from $750-$250,000.  You should find someone local to you that specializes in intellectual property litigation and request a consultation.... Read More

Works of government employees in carrying out their work are not protected by copyright law. This would include statutes and court opinions. There is copyright protection in how a private business compiles the statutes or court opinions. West Law puts Keynotes on their printing of statutes and court opinions to provide a form of executive summary. That content is theirs. I mention this only as a word of caution, if you are going to copy the state statues from a given location, check for copyright notices to make sure you are not copying a compilation of a private company. Good luck, Todd... Read More

First of all, a law student is just a student, and what the student who is learning the law states, cannot be assumed to be correct. First, there is no trademark registration for the mark "exile grfx" and the trademarks for "grfx" have been abandoned. Also, there are a large number of trademark registrations for the word "exile", by itself or in combination with other terms. The class that goods/services are registered in is dictated by what they are, not what you choose to put them in, and merely being in another class would not necessarily mean that use of the mark would not be confusingly similar to use of of a mark by another that is registered in a different class. You really should consult with a trademark attorney, not a law student, to have your situation evaluated.... Read More

Have you filed the application? Frequently, people do not determine their is a similar mark of concern until their trademark application is rejected by an examining Trademark Attorney. If that is your situation, I would encourage you to call the examining Trademark Attorney and speak with him/her. By and large, they are helpful, informative, and interested in resolving the matter expediently. If there is a straightforward way to modify the application to achieve allowance, they will make the suggestion to you. If you have not yet filed, the central issue is always likelihood of confusion. Will consumers become confused that your business and their business are related? You want to modify your mark and or what you are selling sufficiently so that it is unlikely a consumer would be confused about a relationship between your businesses.... Read More

Not intellectual property. IP is copyrights, patents, trademarks.  You want commercial litigation. That said, the fair settlement is the cost to replace the destroyed items plus the diminished value of the damaged items. What would the cost be to buy a comparably used leather coach and grill?  They should have insurance that pays for damaged property that will happen from time to time in that line of work. Proper settlement has nothing to do with the fee you paid for them to move you.  If replacement of the destroyed goods is $800, then that can be a fair settlement. If they don't want to resolve this with you fairly, you should take this issue to small claims court with photos of the damaged goods and, if possible, photos of the goods prior to the damage.... Read More

The rights are owned by the authors and, above them, by the authors of the original works. To publish Star Wars fan fiction, for example, you would need permission from the fan fiction author AND from the owner of the Star Wars intellectual property (Disney). Even not-for-profit activities can be infringing copyrights and result in statutory damages ($250-$250k/offense).... Read More

You can write up and sell your own review book based on facts found from other sources. You must be careful not to copy copyright-protected material or use trademarks of others. Many exam givers protect their exams by copyrighting the questions. By protecting the questions, they can force you to pay a licensing fee to make a review book. CollegeBoard.com will similarly own or have licensed the material that appears on their web page. If you copy portions of the material for your own book, you risk being sued for copyright infringement, which carries significant penalties. Good luck, Todd... Read More