Alt Legal IP News – Issue #150
Bri Van Til | August 06, 2019
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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.
– 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