Alt Legal IP News – Issue #54
Hannah Samendinger | September 14, 2017
Check out our latest Alt Trademarks episode! This episode I spoke with Niki Black (MyCase) about trends in legal tech, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Check out the episode here.
Entertain Me!
– A mistake on the title card of Night of the Living Dead led to an explosion of zombie (movie) apocalypses.
– John Steinbeck’s step-daughter was awarded $13.15 million by a Los Angeles jury, perhaps finalizing ending the family’s courtroom disputes.
– A judge took a moment in his opinion to note that a Jason Statham movie was “quite a good movie” maybe because he is “a sucker for both Tommy Lee Jones and Jason Statham films, and this has both.”
– Facebook is going to pay millions in royalty fees to protect their users from potential copyright violations.
Uh Oh
– A Dr. Phil video led to an unusual decision involving copyright infringement and false imprisonment.
– A Mizzou professor owes $600,000 to the university following an intellectual property case.
– Artur Sargsyan, of Sharebeast.com, has pled guilty to criminal copyright infringement for his role in the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of over 1 billion copies of copyrighted works.
The Odd Ones
– National Geographic has cataloged some mapping patents, including so many ways to fold a map.
– The Kickstarter has already met its goal but there is still time to back “Art of the Patent” playing cards.
– We recently linked to an article about Cheerios and a trademark application for a shade of yellow. That was certainly not the first time brands battled over a color.
Odds and Ends
– Sometimes companies like Apple take steps to keep their trademark applications under wraps, other products are keeping upcoming releases hidden in plain sight.
– While women are statistically underrepresented in patent litigation, a few firms are breaking free from that trend.
– A fake law firm cost one entrepreneur $200,000 by getting Amazon to delist their product.
– An interesting read: A Native American Tribe, a Drugmaker and an Unusual Patent Plan.