Med Mal News
April 22, 2011
Recent news of importance to you and your practice.
Enjoining Unlicensed Trademark Use By Terminated Franchisees
March 29, 2011
In a recent presentation to the Maryland State Bar Association's Franchise Law Committee, Stephen Vaughan and David Worthen, shareholders with Gray Plant Mooty, discussed how to obtain an injunction that will prevent unlicensed trademark use by a terminated franchisee, as well as strategies for fending off arguments commonly raised by franchisees when confronted with a motion for an injunction.
Federal Judge Calls Request for $75 Trillion in Damages in Lime Wire Case 'Absurd'
March 29, 2011
Does $75 trillion even exist? The 13 record companies that are suing file-sharing company Lime Wire for copyright infringement certainly thought so. When they won a summary judgment ruling last May, they demanded damages that could reach this mind-boggling amount, which is more than five times the national debt. Manhattan federal district court judge Kimba Wood, however, saw things differently. She labeled the record companies' damages request "absurd" and contrary to copyright laws.
Grabbing Customers' Copyrights
March 29, 2011
What's at issue is control, obviously, and the great lengths to which some will go to maintain, it even as they benefit from the wide-open, free-flowing viral information torrent of the Internet. These copyright acquisitions are not primarily motivated by the desire to exploit the works and make money, but rather by the desire to stop the public circulation of texts and images the new owners do not like.
Ninth Circuit Vacates Injunction In Advertising Keywords Case
March 29, 2011
Remember U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart's famous line about hardcore pornography? Stewart said it was tough to define, "but I know it when I see it." The quip came to mind after a ruling last month by the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a trademark infringement case involving Internet advertising keywords. In essence, the Ninth Circuit concluded that there's no strict standard for determining infringement in the Internet age, so judges have to know it when they see it.
New Net-Use Tracking Tactics Capture Privacy Claims
March 29, 2011
The use of new technology makes peoples' efforts to keep Internet behavior private more difficult, has given rise to renewed claims from consumers of unlawful intrusiveness by Internet data-collectors, and has revived the argument that such behavior unlawfully violates privacy expectations.
IP News
March 29, 2011
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.
Small Impact on Practice Predicted from White House IP Recommendations
March 29, 2011
When the White House's intellectual-property enforcement coordinator, Victoria Espinel, submitted a wish list to Congress in March recommending 20 changes to federal intellectual property law largely aimed at ramping up criminal punishment for IP infringement, IP lawyers said the white paper recommendations would likely have only a tenuous effect, if any, on civil IP litigation or patent prosecution.
