Intellectual Property Legal Questions

First, were any of the 15 cases sold in CA? If not, the CA court lacks jurisdication to decide the case and you could probably get it dismissed. However, the cost of a court action over 14 cases makes it rediculous for either of you to go to court over this. If I were you, if you haven't already, I would send their attorney a letter telling him/her the facts of were you acquired the cases, how few you sold, and how you did not know the cases were fakes along with agreeing to purchase the plaintiff's case only through legitimate sources in the future, requesting a list of source for genuine goods, and include a check for the proceeds of your sales of the 15 cases. I am sure that they will agree to dismiss the case if you do. However, if the date for answering the Complaint is falling due soon, you should respond filing an answer stating that jurisdication and venue are improper and denying all of the assertions in the Complaint other than those which correctly identify you or your company.... Read More

If you own the registration to copyrighted music and someone is infringing, the next step is to meet with an IP litigator. You should find someone relatively close to where you live or, in the very least, in your state, to represent you. You should be able to find someone who will meet with you for a free consultation to discuss what you have and how they can help you. Good luck, Todd... Read More

If you pirated MS Word and gave it away to schools (educational purpose and no income), you would be guilty of copyright infringement. There may be other facts that help you avoid copyright infringement under a fair use argument (look up fair use on wikipedia), but the facts you have given do not avoid infringement.... Read More

You need a commercial litigation attorney. The complaint would be for intentional interference with economic relations, likely among other claims, although different states word the tort differently. You should try to get a temporary restraining order on the same basis so that he doesn't continue the activity. Good luck, Todd... Read More

It isn't clear from your question why you need to prove ownership. If you want to register copyright in the written material (use copyright.gov and obtain a registration for $35), none of these steps is necessary. Copyright ownership is the best evidence of ownership of written material and the form allows you to identify a pseudonym while listing your real name for ownership purposes. Mailing a document to yourself is not evidence of anything - notarization is superior in every respect. Notarization does not verify the validity of the statement, only that the statement was sworn to on the date provided by the notary.... Read More

Invention rights vest first in the inventor(s). Intellectual property rights can only be conveyed by a signed writing. If you are paid to create something, shop rights in the patent could be obtained by the entity paying you. If the school was not paying you and you did not sign an agreement to convey patent rights, I cannot think of any other means by which your invention rights could become the property of the school. If it is a public school, the school is treated as a part of the government and is held to a higher standard under the Constitution to prevent government taking from private citizens. There may be additional facts that create an ownership dispute, but nothing in your details suggests the school has accrued any intellectual property rights in your project. ... Read More

Trademark infringement is about consumer confusion and, specifically, about consumers being confused about your relationship with the trademark owner. If you use the name Ford in a manner that suggests your website is owned or licensed by Ford, you will have an infringement issue. If you use the name Ford in a manner that indicates you are selling new or used Ford vehicles without any relationship to the manufacturer, you should not have any infringement issues. It is helpful to you, in this type of venture, that consumers recognize vehicles are regularly sold by individuals without relationships with the manufacturer because expectations can be part of the confusion issue. Good luck, Todd... Read More

When you say, "be protected", we're talking about trademark infringement. The government does not have distinct rules or any type of 'fair use' exception related to ornamental use. All we are discussing is trademark infringement. So the question is, if the same mark were repeated over and over around the entire shirt, would consumers be confused into believing the shirt originated with the owner of the trademark. If it is likely that they would, you have trademark infringement. Much of this is subjective. One jury could find one way with regard to using a sports team logo and another jury could find differently when a Monsanto logo is used. If the ornamental use is not complimentary to the logo (e.g., a Red Sox logo urinating on a Yankee logo), a consumer is less likely to believe the shirt originated with the logo owner. No confusion, no infringement, no protection. Any time you are considering using someone else's logo, you should also consider copyright implications. Good luck, Todd... 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

One way to approach this issue is to copyright your software. If you copyright your software before they publish a copy of your software, you can collect statutory damages for their infringement of your work and attorney fees if you litigate. Statutory damages can range from $750 to $250,000.00 per incident. Copyrighting software is relatively cheap and can be completed for less than $1,000. Whereas patent infringement litigation is ridiculously expense and trademark infringement litigation is rarely lucrative, copyright infringement litigation is regularly cost-effective and profitable if you register your work before the infringement occurs. Good luck, Todd... Read More

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 More

Yes, it would be cited as prior art. If any section of 102 leads to the conclusion that the 2010 patent is prior art, then the 2010 patent is prior art. You are correct that the 2010 patent is not prior art under 102 (a)(2). However, it is prior art under 102(a)(1), at least as a printed publication. Because it qualifies as prior art under 102(a)(1), it is not necessary to determine what analysis, if any, of other 102 sections would find. For this reason, when a patent is about to issue, we generally do some analysis to see if we want to file any type of continuation application - before the issuing patent becomes prior art. 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 need to call around to intellectual property litigators in your area and see if one will meet with you for a free consultation to determine if they can help you with a matter. That practice is not uncommon. If you have no money, they will want a contingency fee arrangement and they need to believe that they are likely to win and the contingency percentage will likely exceed their regular hourly compensation (to account for the risk).   Good luck, Todd... Read More

URLs do not infringe trademarks. The way you use a URL can. If you are trying to confuse Mobility Mall customers, you could be guilty of infringement. If customers are only confused because that business adopted a name for which you already owned a URL, then you are probably ok. If you are being threatened with litigation or demands are being made of you, you should seek local counsel who might be willing to review the matter with you (preferably someone who offers a free consultation) to make sure the facts surrounding your use of the URL do not create an issue. Good luck, Todd... Read More

If this happened to me, I would register some of the artwork with the Copyright Office. The forms are very simple and available at www.copyright.gov. It costs $35 to file a copyright application. If it is infringed after you file the application, you can receive statutory damages and the infringer can be responsible for paying for your attorney. Save a copy of the application(s) you file. I would also send the author a letter, saving a copy, informing the author that he is not authorized to use the work. If, despite your letter, he does use your work, contact an IP attorney to resolve the matter by getting an injunction and/or damages.... 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

You cannot patent or trademark or copyright what occurs in your body. Through medical privacy laws, there is some ownership of what happens in your body, in the aspect that you can control the dissemination of that activity. If you choose to disseminate it and it leads to technological advances, you do not have any authorship in the advances by contributing your body's information so you would not have any ownership absent a contract.... Read More

Short of having a contract in place before you submit the idea, you have no right to profit from the idea. If you are an employee, you could turn to the employee handbook to see if that creates any rights for you to profit from ideas you contribute, but you are still limited to pre-existing contracts. Good luck, Todd... Read More

Your thought process is right, but your analysis is off. If I want to cite research, I might use a sentence or a paragraph of the research paper and the sorts of people that will be interested in purchasing the research paper will not be appeased by my citation (e.g., they will still go buy it and may even be encouraged to go make the purchase by seeing my citation). When you use the image, you are using the whole image. If you want to put a sentence on your site about the image so that people go look at the image, that would be fine. By using the whole image, you are leaving nothing for the author/owner of the image. The exact analysis is based on 'fair use' (copyright term, check out the wikipedia page). Noncommercial use is important. And the percentage of the original work you copy is important. Good luck, Todd... 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