Alt Legal IP News – Issue #152
Bri Van Til | August 21, 2019
THE Big Controversy over a Tiny Word
– The Ohio State University’s application to trademark “THE” has sparked a heavy backlash, including from sports writer David Briggs, who denounced the move as arrogant.
– OSU rival University of Michigan poked fun of the university by highlighting the “of” in their own name.
– Ohio journalist Jim Krumel discusses trademark precedent from peer universities and jokingly asks whether we’ll need to start calling the school TOSU instead.
In the Sky
– British American Tobacco (BAT) partially lost an e-cigarette trademark battle with Japan Tobacco International (JTI).
– Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher’s trademark application for Palm Springs Firebirds has city residents speculating about the name of the city’s new hockey team.
– This author argues that the legal fight over copyright infringement in “Stairway to Heaven” parallels other fights about class and race that have been “looming over this country these past few years.”
(More) Battles with China
– Director Christopher Wray testified that the FBI is currently investigating over 1000 cases of suspected or attempted theft of US intellectual property by Chinese companies.
– US Customs and Border Protection agents in Philadelphia seized nearly $1 million in counterfeit smartphones arriving from China.
– Velodyne Lidarhas has filed suit against two Chinese companies, alleging they stole the company’s self-driving car IP.
Odds and Ends
– Apple is suing software company Corellium for copyright infringement. Meanwhile, Corephotonics is accusing Apple faces charges of patent infringement of the iPhone camera.
– The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that the term “patent troll” is too vague to be “defamatory.”
– There will be no ChefUber trademark registration in the UK after ride-hailing service Uber opposed the mark because of the confusing similarity with UberEats.
– Can a company use copyright protection on repair manuals to ensure product obsolescence?