Not just promotional and eye-catching, but creative and artistic too: “A New York lawyer who used a cartoon image of a heavily bandaged patient to advertise his personal injury practice may be entitled to copyright protection for the drawing, a federal judge has ruled.” Richard P. Neimark of Rockland County (toll-free number: 1-888-PAL-RICH) had been using the picture of a bandaged patient lying in a hospital bed in Yellow Pages ads and on his website and had even gone so far as to register it with the U.S. Copyright Office in 1990, so you can imagine his annoyance when a personal injury firm with an office in nearby White Plains, Ronai and Ronai, adapted the drawing for its own ad, later saying it thought the drawing was in the public domain. A federal judge has urged the parties to settle, noting that the Ronai firm had pulled down the graphic immediately and that no evidence had been presented of any actual injury. (Anthony Lin, “Copyright Infringement Suit Over Lawyer’s Advertising Cartoon Continues”, New York Law Journal, Jun. 11).

Filed under: chasing clients, copyright, hospitals