Our team’s weekly roundup of top stories on Copyright and Trademark from around the Internet:
- Erik Pelton summarizes the responses of four trademark/ip organizations to the USPTO’s request for comments on the subject of trademark litigation tactics. [USPTO request here]. (via The TTABlog)
- JC Penney, punished for black hat SEO (the 4th time Google had penalized them).
- In the 100th Anniversary issue of The Trademark Reporter, Ann Gilson Lelonde and Jerome Gilson bring us up to date on the law of nontraditional trademarks, in their article entitled: “Getting Real with Nontraditional Trademarks: What’s Next after Red Oven Knobs, the Sound of Burning Methamphetamine, and Goats on a Grass Roof, ” 101 TMR 186 (January-February 2011 (Via The TTABlog)
- Boop Boop Ba’doop Woops? Fleischer Studios, Inc. v. A.V.E.L.A., INC., No. 09-56317 (9th Cir. Feb. 23, 2011): Fleischer Studios Inc. doesn’t have standing to bring a trademark infringement lawsuit against several other companies that license Betty Boop merchandise, because it was unable to prove the chain of how the rights to the character was transferred over the years.
- One on One with Girl Talk, by Nick Bilton at the New York Times: “I put my music out there and hope for the best. It is clearly in a gray area but I believe it should fall into fair use under copyright law. I feel like people are not listening to my music instead of buying a CD or album of an artist I feature. Instead, people find new musicians because of a sample on one of my records.”
- Music Scores on Web Hits Sensitive Copyright Note by Daniel Wakin at the New York Times: The International Music Score Library Project (imslp.org), with 85,000 scores, or parts for nearly 35,000 works, is an open-source repository that uses the Wikipedia template and philosophy – becomes not only a business threat, but also raises copyright issues.