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Intellectual Property

Patently Obvious – Fact or Fiction?

Z. Peter Sawicki and James L. Young January 4, 2016

Legal fictions are everywhere. For instance, we often invent people to play roles in applying our legal standards. The most well-known is probably the reasonable person standard for a negligence determination where the liability evaluation is based on how an idealized person exercising ordinary prudence would act in a certain situation. The reasonable person is not an average person and

Your Holiday Soundtrack

Z. Peter Sawicki and James L. Young December 8, 2015

The Copyrights of Christmas Christmas has a musical tradition like no other holiday. Celebrating the season with songs and carols dates back centuries. Now, the close association of music and Christmas extends to today’s most popular communication medium – the Internet. Sharing content using social media has become part of the fabric of our holiday celebrations. When you share a

Inquiring Minds Want to Know – Secrecy at the USPTO

Z. Peter Sawicki and James L. Young November 10, 2015

Let’s talk about confidentiality, in the context of filings made by applicants at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). When are such filings publicly available? What can be learned from such filings? Why should you and your clients care? Patents All original U.S. patent filings are confidential, at least for a while. Design patent applications – No information

Infringement or Fair Use … It Depends

Daniel Thomson October 21, 2015

Copyright law can be a labyrinth, an infringement minotaur waiting to jump on the unwary. Your head may spin when trying to determine infringement, non-infringement and fair use. Fair use, or the limited unauthorized reproduction of copyright material, is a legal doctrine codified in The Copyright Act of 1976. 17 U.S.C. § 107 states, “[T]he fair use of a copyrighted

True Lies: Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act

Z. Peter Sawicki and James L. Young October 21, 2015

There are many types of false and misleading advertising tactics. For example, bait and switch advertising, high pressure sales tactics, artificially inflating prices, deceptive form contracts, and the failure to disclose certain facts. Our focus in this article is how to deal with the situation where your client, a business owner, comes to you and says, “My competitor has published

Intellectual Property

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