Trademark & Copyright

Over the past few years, starting with the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA’s) well-publicized campaign to enforce the copyrights of its associated record companies, new types of copyright infringement litigation techniques have been tried all over the country.

Remember last year when the European Union's Court of Justice ruled that Google did not violate European Union law by selling trademarks as keywords and thereby permitting advertisers to purchase and use keywords corresponding to their competitor's trademarks in Google ads? 

Although .xxx domain names will not become generally available to the public until December 6, 2011, many registrars are offering pre-registration of these domain names now. 

The Washington Post recently published an interesting article showing how opportunistic entrepreneurs and various branches of the U.S. military have collaborated to create a $50 million market for goods branded with various US military insignia and trademarks.

Perhaps no other industry is more cognizant of the need to build upon and reinterpret prior work than the fashion industry. The idea that designs must constantly change and evolve several times a year with fresh and innovative new styles is a firmly entrenched concept and results in a mind-bogglingly large amount of new fashion designs every year.

Are you concerned that the name of your business or the trademark used in connection with your best-selling product will be used in connection with an adult entertainment website given the soon-to-be launched .XXX domain names?

Last month, the kitchen and bath giant, Kohler Co., filed an anti-cybersquatting suit in federal court in California against several cybersquatters. In its complaint, Kohler alleges that it previously paid the named defendants $500 to transfer a domain name incorporating the KOHLER trademark in exchange for their agreement that they would not register any additional domain names containing the KOHLER mark in the future.