We’ve explained smishing schemes before [view related posts]. Smishing is like phishing, but uses SMS texting to deliver malicious code to users’ phones, or tricks the user into visiting a malicious website to steal their credentials or money. Hence,
Intellectual Property
ACTS Retirement Services Faces Class Action over Data Breach
ACTS Retirement Services, Inc. (ACTS), a non-profit corporation that manages retirement communities, suffered a data breach in April 2022, which led to unauthorized access to thousands of current and former employees’ personal information. Specifically, names, Social Security numbers, and financial…
AI Can’t Hold Patents Because They Require an “Inventor” to Be a “Natural Person”
A federal court ruled last week in Thaler v. Vidal (4th Cir. Aug. 5, 2022), that an artificial intelligence (AI) system cannot be listed as a named inventor on a patent application, affirming earlier rulings from the United States Patent…
FAA Issues Task Order for UTM Project at Griffiss International Airport
This week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a task order contract to the New York UAS Test Site for an unmanned aircraft system (UAS or drone) integration project. The project is designed to assist in the development of a…
Privacy Tip #340 – Smishing Scams Reminder
The Twilio and Cloudfare smishing attacks [view related post] provide a timely reminder of how sophisticated smishing attacks are and how they can affect businesses and their customers. But threat actors don’t just attack businesses– they also attack individual…
Lululemon prevails in Ninth Circuit: No reverse confusion re use of ALIIGN/ALIGN for yoga pants

File this next to last month’s RISE case in the Second Circuit, under “Brands with strong housemarks defeat reverse confusion claims.”
But see the 11th Circuit Amazon FYRE case.
Text of Align Activation v LuluLemon Athletica, 21-55775 (Ninth…
AI Systems May Invent, But Are They Inventors?
There’s a Zelda Trademark Dispute Months Before Game’s New Release

IPNews® – Nintendo has recently filed a trademark opposition against Brooklyn-based ZeldaVision Media Inc.
Nintendo is claiming that ZeldaVision Media’s trademark application for ZELDAVISION infringes on its ZELDA video game and franchise. This comes after ZeldaVision limited the scope of…
TTAB rules RANCHERO and EL RANCHERO marks confusingly similar

In a non-precedential decision, the TTAB held that use of the word and stylized mark EL RANCHERO for “food products made of corn, namely, corn chips, tortillas and tostadas” were confusingly similar to the word and design marks RANCHERO for…
PepsiCo wins appeal over MTN DEW RISE ENERGY trademark dispute

PepsiCo. Inc. recently convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to throw out a preliminary injunction granted by a New York federal judge last fall that prevented PepsiCo from using MTN DEW RISE ENERGY on its canned…