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Alt Legal Blog

Your source for news, updates and guidance on all things trademarks and intellectual property.

Alt Legal IP News – Issue #150

Bri Van Til | August 06, 2019
2 min read

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Copyrights and Copycats

– Last week a federal court ruled that a full-body banana costume can be protected by a copyright. Warning: this read is delightfully punny. If that doesn’t ap-peel to you, try this one instead.

– A federal jury last week found that Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” infringed on the copyright of a Christrian rap artist.

– Google and Oracle’s fight over microcode, fair use, and copyrights may end up in the Supreme Court.

Unconventional IP Protections

Ferrari threatened to sue a customer for trademark infringement for posting “distasteful” images that included the Ferrari brand.

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– A convention attendee took the responsibility for enforcing Nintendo’s IP rights into his own hands when he smashed a PS4 game for being “too similar to Breath of the Wild.”

– An architect in Delhi tried, unsuccessfully, to argue that demolishing the building he’d designed would violate his copyright.

– LoveFrom Jony (the name of former Apple designer Jony Ive’s new design agency) is a massive trademark application covering 25 classes and over 1500 goods and services.

IP around the World

– British IP attorney Paul Carlyle warns filers to take care of their trademarks “before Brexit bites.”

– Chinese law professionals are urging China to clarify and amend the country’s copyright law to further protect IP rights.

– Toshiba was recently granted the UK’s first multimedia motion mark.

– Starting this past Saturday, the USPTO will now require all international applicants and non-US-based businesses to be represented by US attorneys to be granted IP protection.

Odds and Ends

UC Santa Barbara is suing Target, Amazon, Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Ikea for violating the University’s patents.

– Sentius International is suing Apple for its spell check functionality, claiming that using a red squiggly line to indicate misspelled words violates their patent.

– The first patent applications for inventions created by AI were recently filed with the US, EU, and UK patent offices.

See you next week!

Bri from Alt Legal

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