Texas Intellectual Property Legal Questions

You do not provide enough information to properly answer your question.  Presumably the Canadian company claims to have a copyright in the photo. If so, remove the photo from you website and advise Canadian company that you have done so and direct them to the web developer who put the photo on your website without your knowledge that it is a protected work. Most likely, the will be the last that you hear from them.... Read More

The answer to your inquiry does not relate to the mold, but rather to the resulting product. Is the resulting product a utilitarian product? If so, is there a design patent or utility patent covering the product? If not, there may not be any enforcible rights.  Is the object decorative, as opposed to functional, e.g., a sculpture? If so, who desighed the object? If you did, the copyright in the object belongs to you, not the person who made the molds. As you can see, there are numerous questions that must be answered before an opinion can be given as to what you can do.  However, mere ownership of the molds would not give ownership of the rights in the resulting cast the same way that ownerhip of a blueprint of a building would not give rights in a building constructed using the blueprint.... Read More

Not sure what you questions is. Yes she is infringing your copyright, but if you did not register the image within 90 days of first publication (in this case the first time someone left your shop with the image), you cannot get statutory damages or attorney's fees so the best you could do is get an injunction and monetary damages to the extent that such have resulted. She probably thinks that it is a "fair use" because it is for a fundraiser (presumably for a charity), but the monetary purpose should defeat such a defense.  If you haven't already, you should contact her/the charity and advise them of your rights and demand that they discontinue sales. Alternatively, you could require them to apply a copyright notice with your name as part of the notice and take a tax deduction for the value of a reasonable royalty that you have donated to the charity.... Read More

Almost certainly you will have a problem doing this. Under US trademark law, there only has to be a "likelihood of confusion" among consumers that your product is sponsored by or affiliated with their product due to the similarity of the trademarks. Vodka and whiskey are highly related products which lends to the confusion, meaning that it would be reasonable for a consumer to assume that a whiskey product labeled "Windsor" would come from the same source as a vodka product labeled "Windsor."... Read More

Payday loans do not involve automobiles as collateral -- I think you mean an auto title loan, not a payday loan. Generally speaking, the lien of the title lender entitles them to repossess the car. They must exercise reasonable care in doing that. Whether the damage you allege is the result of a failure of reasonable care cannot be determined from your inquiry. With regard to the personal items, normally, a secured lender must return the property of third parties that has been wrongfully taken into possession. Any claim is limited to the fair market value of the property wrongly withheld or destroyed.... Read More

There is no uniform, central means of doing so. You would need to ascertain the copyright owner (or licensee) of each work of which you obtained unpermitted copies, contact them, and make an agreed payment. Depending on when your infringement occurred, the statute of limitations may have run.... Read More

You could try to argue that you had an oral agreement with the other party to keep the information confidential. Oral agreements are very hard to enforce if there is no written evidence, and there are other obstacles such as the Statute of Frauds that prevents certain oral agreements from being enforced. The best way to protect yourself is through a written agreement signed by both parties in advance. Depending on the idea, though, if you are the author or inventor, you could register the copyright or file to patent the invention. Only the author (in the case of copyright) or the inventor (in the case of inventions) can file for copyright or patent protection so you could shut them down through these avenues if they apply. You should talk to an intellectual property lawyer about the next steps to take. ... Read More

You may have both civil claims as well as the ability to make a criminal complaint against your former employer and the general manager. Of course, the "personal information" that your former employer could have seen through this inquiry sounds a lot like the same kind of information that any employer collects -- SSN, bank account data for payroll, etc. -- so it is difficult to see how you have been harmed in a monetary way. Nevertheless, this access is impropoper, and you should consult with an attorney if you want to pursue the claim in civil litigation. Obviously, change your password.... Read More

As a general matter, any work of authorship -- including this response to your question -- created in the United States is copyrighted immediately upon its creation. The author of the work has the right to determine whether and to what extent others may copy, publish and reproduce the work. There are exceptions to this rule, including the rule of "fair use"; whether your proposed newletter use qualifies as "fair" is impossible to determine from the facts you have posted. As a general matter, you do not have the right to reproduce the works of authorship of others.... Read More

While you may want to inform the company of your plans (and it would be wise for you to do so), based on the limited information that you have provided, it does not seem that you are using any of the company's intellectual property if all you are using that relates to the company is truly non-proprietary analysis skills.... Read More

You do not have an obligation to read the terms and conditions of the websites and software that you use. However, those terms and conditions/licenses may include language that you agree to them by using the website and/or software, in which case you have entered into a contract. Courts have upheld clickwrap agreements so staying ignorant of the terms of the contract you may have just entered into will not excuse you if you breach the agreement.... Read More

There are a lot of other facts that you would have to know to answer your question. Trademark rights are acquired through use in connection with the offering and sale of goods/services so that consumers can identify and distinguish the source of those goods/services from other providers of similar goods/services. A user of a trademark has common law rights by virtue of using the trademark, and those common law rights are limited to the geographic area in which the mark is used. It can be very difficult to determine where that geographic area lies. Federal registration gives a trademark user presumptively nationwide rights. Under your facts, it is not clear whether the other company has a Federal registration or where the other company's common law rights exist. It is also not clear whether another person has registered or is using a trademark that is similar to your trademark. A business name does not necessarily establish trademark rights, so it is also not clear whether you are referring to a "trade name" or a trademark. One final point, goods/services do not have to be identical to be infringing, they only have to be related or in the natural zone of expansion of the senior (prior) user of that trademark. You should talk to an experienced trademark lawyer to decide if it is worth investing in this trademark if there is a possibility that you would have to stop using it in the future.... Read More