Blog Posts: Intellectual Property

With technology invading almost every aspect of our life, intellectual property rights are valuable and complex.  While traditional assets are usually easy to identify, IP assets are not.  Successful business owners and managers know that identifying a problem and solving it is at the heart of maintaining profitability and providing a superior service or ...

In recent years, federal courts across the U.S. have seen a fair share of copyright infringement lawsuits involving peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent. In these cases, the plaintiffs are typically feature film or adult film copyright owners who allege that numerous unknown defendants (sued as John or Jane Does) are liable for copyright infringement by downloa...

On July 24, 2018, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision that can be an important tool to help copyright owners enforce their rights.  It’s not unusual for copyright owners to believe that it’s just not worth going after some infringers because the cost of attorney fees can quickly exceed the amount of the damages caused by the infringement. ...

Taxes and the internet are not two things typically lumped together. However, last week, the Supreme Court addressed those two issues in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, when it re-evaluated the question from a 1992 Supreme Court case as to whether state taxes must be collected if the seller isn’t physically located within the state. Twenty-six years...

Marketing a product as “Made in the USA” or “Made in America” can provide a competitive advantage to companies using the designation. Some view the designation as signifying a safer or higher-quality product. Many consider the act of purchasing such products patriotic—supporting jobs and industry at home rather than overseas. Because o...

Data breaches are inevitable. 2017 was the “year of the data breach,” with more exposure of personally identifiable information (“PII”) than ever before. If you were one of the 30% of US-based consumers who were notified of a data breach, it isn’t comforting to know that you aren’t alone in your plight. As a business owner, the f...

Whether operating in states that allow medical marijuana like Arizona or in states that allow it both medically and recreationally like Colorado, business owners in the marijuana industry want to protect their brands just like any other business. Unlike other industries though, the marijuana industry still exists in a legal gray area due to conflicting state and fe...

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that employers may require their employees to resolve wage and hour disputes through one-on-one arbitration instead of through class actions. In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”) requires enforcement of individual arbitration agreements between empl...

On May 15, 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office officially registered the distinctive smell of Play-Doh, a favorite childhood toy for many. The federal registration covers “Toy modeling compounds” and states that the trademark “is a scent of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, combined with the smell of ...

Copyrights arise automatically when an original work is created. Copyrights protect “original works of authorship,” which include paintings, illustrations, sculpture, photographs, books, articles, poems, movies, songs, recordings, logo designs, website content, software code, and the like. The creator of the work automatically obtain...