Intellectual Property

This article surveys the contours of puffery across federal and state advertising law, examines where courts and the National Advertising Division (a unit of BBB National Programs, which provides a self-regulatory forum for advertising disputes) have drawn the line, and identifies practical takeaways for practitioners whose clients want to puff — but not too much.

Today’s challenging financial markets are leading private equity firms to hold on to portfolio companies for increasingly longer periods. New value-creation strategies are therefore needed to address delayed exit timelines. Firms should consider approaches that may not have made economic sense under shorter exit timelines but can access hidden value over these longer horizons.

What are some ways in which creatives and media companies capitalize on viral content? Can IP law keep pace with AI-driven internet culture? And why are gamers so obsessed with a club-wielding piece of lumber?

Questions on who owns AI training models using copyrighted material are no longer hypothetical, they are already the subject of active litigation, with several cases moving beyond the pleading stage.

Many lawyers and executives view confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements as run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter agreements or clauses. Often, these types of agreements/clauses are signed and never looked at again. But when disputes arise, particularly when company trade secrets are at stake, the confidentiality agreement or provision can be key to the outcome of the matter.

A federal appeals court said Jack Daniel’s can’t stop the maker of the “Bad Spaniels” dog toy from selling the bottle-shaped parody, ruling the whiskey maker failed to show the toy was likely to tarnish its famous trademarks.

The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in RiseandShine Corp. v. PepsiCo, Inc., a trademark dispute that presents a question with potentially significant implications for trademark litigation: whether a trademark’s inherent strength is a question of fact for a jury or a question of law for a court.

Sampling portions of preexisting songs and sound recordings in new works became common in the 1980s, with the rise of hip-hop music and the widespread availability of digital sampling technology. This article examines several 2026 court decisions involving music sampling disputes.