On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Intellectual Property Litigation on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The movie "Casablanca" is one of Humphrey Bogart's most famous movies. Seventy years later, the image of Bogart's sporting a hat and trench is still seen everywhere. It is also the subject of an intellectual property lawsuit between his heirs and the makers of the famous coat.
Burberry Group and Bogart's relatives are suing and countersuing in a California Superior Court and a New York federal court over trademark infringement. The coat is often associated with the actor's persona, according to Bogart's family.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Intellectual Property Litigation on Wednesday, May 9, 2012
President Obama wants to stop military veterans from getting duped by for-profit schools offering phony benefits by having the GI Bill trademarked by the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Intellectual property attorneys say the president's request is unusual and impossible, according to U.S. trademark laws.
The GI Bill is a law that allows soldiers to get special financial considerations for a college education, along with other benefits. Many military personnel are not aware of the law's limits in educational areas. GI Bill money cannot be used to purchase an education from private, for-profit schools.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Patent Law on Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Twitter is promising that the company will not use the patents of its designers and engineers offensively in lawsuits, to avoid being compared to patent trolls that flood the tech industry with lawsuits. The San Francisco-based company's new "Innovator's Patent Agreement" has earned equal amounts of praise and criticism.
The agreement states that employees' patents would be used as an offense in litigation only with the engineer or designer's permission. The company hopes to see the contract make its way into the licensing agreements of information technology giants like Google and Facebook.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Intellectual Property Litigation on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The smackdowns doled out in pay-per-view sports like boxing and ultimate fighting may be nothing in comparison to the financial beatings many club, restaurant and bar owners take when they fail to kick in a commercial fee to show these pay-per-view television events.
A combination violation of satellite cable and copyright laws can set bar owners back tens of thousands and evens hundreds of thousands of dollars. The legal fees racked up in intellectual property suits also become the burden of sporting event "pirates."
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Copyright Law on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The battle to slow copyright infringement on the Internet will be intensified this July. That is when the biggest U.S. Internet service providers will don the hats of authority over a new copyright alert system.
It is up to copyright holders to initiate the so-called six-strike process by directing ISPs to files that have been downloaded illegally. The informed ISP will send out a first strike warning letter, telling a user his account is linked with infringement activity. Subsequent strikes become more aggressive if a user ignores the letter and continues the illegal downloading. Users are offered alternatives for music and videos to lure them away from copyright-infringing websites.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Intellectual Property Litigation on Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The privacy rights of 10 million Americans have been violated, according to warnings issued by credit card companies Visa and MasterCard. The credit card numbers of millions of people apparently were lifted in the first two months of this year.
Banks were put on alert to watch for suspicious, new credit cards being used from the numbers that were stolen. The intellectual property theft trickled down through blogs, which stated that neither company's essential system was comprised. An investigation is underway to trace who, how and where the credit card numbers were stolen. Internet security analysts say the privacy weak spot was found in an unnamed U.S. payment services company.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Patent Law on Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Two of the most well-known names on the Internet are headed into intellectual property war over 10 patents that Yahoo claims made Facebook what it is today -- the world's most successful social media website.
Yahoo has had better days. Faltering revenues, relentless competitors and a deflated stock price -- now worth less than half of what Microsoft was willing to pay for the company in 2005 -- have marginalized the search engine giant.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Copyright Infringement on Friday, March 30, 2012
Pi is a fact and belongs to everyone, even musicians, according to a federal ruling in a recent copyright infringement lawsuit. The lawsuit was between two composers who individually set the mathematical constant pi to music.
Pi is an irrational, infinite number approximated by 3.14159265. Pi represents the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference and shows up as a constant in mathematical equations.
The fascination with pi is not reserved for mathematicians. San Francisco Exploratorium honored the number by declaring Pi Day March 14, which in numerals mirrors the number's first three digits.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Copyright Law on Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Internet startup Pinterest, a popular image-collection website that allows contributors to post or "pin" art or photos, may have issues with intellectual property law. One user, a female attorney, decided to remove several images she displayed on Pinterest after questioning whether the website could be guilty of copyright infringement.
A blog written by the lawyer about the issue went viral on the Internet and caught the notice of one of Pinterest's co-founders. The blog led to a phone conversation about legal matters.
On behalf of Erik S. Syverson, Attorney at Law posted in Copyright Law on Monday, March 12, 2012
An American Indian tribe is suing nationally-known retailer Urban Outfitters for an alleged violation of the Navajo Nation's registered trademarks. The lawsuit follows a legal request by the tribe to force the retailer to stop using the name "Navajo" on its products.
The trademark infringement suit is accompanied by charges that state Urban Outfitters, which has many locations in California, is in violation of the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which prohibits items to be sold that falsely imply that American Indians created them.
