Alt Legal IP News – Issue #227
Bri Van Til | February 17, 2021
Searching Everywhere
Effectively searching TESS can help you knowledgeably advise clients and reduce the chances of receiving office actions citing likelihood of confusion. Join Alt Legal and former USPTO trademark examiner Ed Timberlake for our webinar next week to put your knowledge to the TESS!
If documents are located on a publicly available site and can be found through browsing, is the prior art publicly accessible?
Here’s a quick primer of the types of patent searches and how they differ.
Keep ‘Em Updated
The Third Circuit ruled that Pocky’s trade dress was not protectable; I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
The Muppets haven’t performed The Great Gatsby yet, but there’s a Great Gatsby graphic novel.
The owner of the PROUD BOYS trademark didn’t wait for the mark to be canceled; he has surrendered the registration in light of the Capitol Riot.
After discussions and negotiations, Google will pay French publishers millions for displaying their content.
The product line formerly known as Aunt Jemima has a new name.
Blurred Lines
A police officer reportedly played copyrighted music while speaking so that live-streaming services’ copyright filters would automatically take down videos of him.
Can the components of psychedelic therapy be patented?
Professional Concerns
If you could Intuit that this company needed a contracts and marketing attorney, I wouldn’t need to put it in the newsletter.
Capital One (has anyone ever told them that you can capitalize letters but not numbers?) is looking for senior counsel.
Being associate general counsel at this foundation would probably open lots of Gates for you.
Fish & Richardson is looking for a conflicts specialist. I feel conflicted a lot. Do you think that counts?
Empower Retirement is looking for senior IP litigation counsel. Surely they have a great 401k plan.
Have an open role on your team? Send a link to your job listing to community@altlegal.com, and we’ll publish it in our next newsletter.
Odds and Ends
Read all about the Black inventors who brought us several important products.
Do IP laws contribute to inequality? If so, what can we do about them?
The Federal Circuit says it doesn’t need to follow the USPTO’s patent eligibility rules.
How can you assess a copyright infringement cease and desist letter?
Open-source software is everywhere, and there are limits to what parts of it you can protect. Join Alt Legal and Mitesh Patel of Hopkins Carley for a webinar next month to learn about trademark protection for open-source projects and copyleft software.
Instacart has added over 250 IBM patents to their cart. Something tells me the transaction was hardly instant, though.