- IP turf-staking: charity tries to trademark the phrase “Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness” [Likelihood of Confusion]
- Bad excuses dept.: Ohio 17-year-old killed his mom but lawyers “insisted youth and video game addiction made him less responsible,” a theory judge wasn’t buying [AP/WBBM]
- Lawsuit over Yelp review (chiropractor vs. disgruntled ex-client) settled [CNet; earlier]
- “Can U.S. Laws Protect Online Speech from Foreign Libel Suits?” [Neuberger/PBS]
- Coverage of Philadelphia’s Fumo scandal trial, “law firms [and some big ones] used in an alleged blackmail scheme” [Lowe, AmLaw Daily, earlier]
- “Another wrongful-paternity case from hell” (wrong guy, but default judgment) [Balko, Reason]
- Never trust content from “ProPublica” [Kopel @ Volokh on environmental effects of oil hydraulic fracturing, response from ProPublica, Kopel’s riposte; their attack on Goldman Sachs in California and New Jersey; Carter Wood at NAM “ShopFloor”]
- Few places have emulated San Francisco and Santa Cruz ban on discrimination based on appearance, i.e., against less attractive folks [WorkplaceProf]
Posts Tagged ‘trademarks’
January 8 roundup
- “You’ve got to be alive to be inconvenienced”: some thoughts on the withdrawal of an emergency battlefield therapy [GruntDoc]
- Yes, let’s all have a nice scare over “third-hand” tobacco smoke, or actually let’s not [Sullum, Siegel, Greenfield] And you knew they were coming: “smokeasies” [Tuccille, Examiner]
- “We are fully cooperating with the government in its investigations” (Hey, I never said “we” included my client) [WSJ Law Blog on Madoff case]
- Speech so precious it must be rationed: Yale Law Journal author proposes “Tort Liability on Websites for Cyber-Harassment” [via TortsProf]
- Rick Hills on Richardson probe: federally criminalizing state-level pay-to-play is a bad idea [Prawfs]
- Paul Alan Levy: Martin Luther King Jr. estate, much criticized for its aggressive trademark assertions in the past, deserves due credit for its handling of a case where free speech was implicated [CL&P]
- Lawyers on Craigslist: “If you practice as well as you spell, we’re golden” [Nicole Black, Legal Antics]
- Yes, I’m overhauling Overlawyered’s look and feel with the aid of Thesis, a powerful “theme” (way of changing presentation) for WordPress. Expect my tinkering to go on for a while.
December 9 roundup
- Go vote for Overlawyered now, please, in the ABA Journal best-blogs contest; some details on contestants in other categories;
- Update on “Got Breastmilk?” trademark dispute [Giacalone; earlier]
- Trauma patient is bleeding while you fumble to get the IV equipment out of its blister pack. Soon it’ll be even more complicated. Thanks OSHA! [Throckmorton] And where are the stand-up medical comedy routines?
- Arkansas Supreme Court’s handling of school finance litigation suggests it’s making it up as it goes along [Jay Greene]
- “Linux Defenders” is tech-firm consortium’s new effort to create “no-fly zone” protecting open-source system from patent trolls [Parloff, Fortune]
- Zero tolerance roundup: 10 year old who took $5.96 Wal-Mart cap gun to school arrested, fingerprinted, faces expulsion [11alive.com, Newton County, Ga.] Harford County, Md. mom, acting as chaperone on school field trip, “reached out to tap” third grader to shush him, now faces ten years if convicted of assault [ABC2News.com, Baltimore] Related: we’re too afraid of touch [Times Online] Teasing is bad for children and other living things. Really? Are you sure? [Althouse, NYT]
- Columnist has opposed bailouts and favored free market liquidation of uneconomic firms. Now that his newspaper faces bankruptcy, has he changed his mind? [Steve Chapman]
- Good way to suffer reputational damage: file a lawsuit claiming characters in movie “Dazed and Confused” were based on your own teenage selves [four years ago on Overlawyered]
When you hear “monster”, they want you to think of them
Back in April we had occasion to note the aggressive intellectual property stance of a company called Monster Cable, which had drawn a memorably tart riposte from the recipient of one of its nastygrams. We didn’t catch a wider aspect of the story, noted by Engadget in May, which is that Monster Cable goes around demanding that a wide range of businesses stop using the word “monster” in contexts far removed from its own line of work (audio/video cables); it reportedly has demanded cash from such businesses in exchange for calling off its lawyers. One of its targets, a miniature golf operation called Monster Mini Golf, is now trying to bring the story to public attention (TechDirt, Dec. 3).
Jones Day vs. BlockShopper: court denies motion to dismiss
A court has declined to dismiss the trademark action by the giant law firm upset at a local real estate publication that had gossiped about condominium purchases by two of the law firm’s associates. (Levy/CL&P, Bayard/Citizen Media Law, Ron Coleman, Eric Goldman). Earlier coverage here and here.
Batman — a city in Turkey — to sue Dark Knight director
Turns out there’s a city in southeastern Turkey by the name of Batman. And its mayor wants royalties. “‘The royalty of the name “Batman” belongs to us … 
November 4 roundup
- Thanks to guestbloggers Victoria Pynchon (of Negotiation Law Blog) and Jason Barney for lending a hand last week;
- Will the U.S. government need to sponsor its own motorcycle gang in order to hold on to trademark confiscated from “Mongols” group? [WSJ law blog]
- With a little help for its friends: Florida Supreme Court strikes down legislated limits on fees charged by workers’ comp attorneys [St. Petersburg Times, Insurance Journal]
- Stripper, 44, files age discrimination complaint after losing job at Ontario club [YorkRegion.com, Blazing Cat Fur via Blog of Walker] The stripper age bias complaint we covered eight years ago was also from Ontario;
- Federal judge green-lights First Amendment suit by college instructor who says he was discriminated against for conservative political beliefs [NYLJ] (link fixed now)
- Judge orders parties to settle dispute over noisy parrots after it reaches £45,700 in legal costs [Telegraph]
- How to make sure you’re turned down when applying for admittance to the bar [Ambrogi, Massachusetts]
- Questions at depositions can be intended to humiliate and embarrass, not just extract relevant information [John Bratt, Baltimore Injury Lawyer via Miller]
Election-season YouTube takedowns
They seem now to be part of the accepted armament of campaign law. “Of course the McCain-Palin team could counter-notify, but the DMCA’s 10-14 business day waiting period makes that option next to useless, when ’10 days can be a lifetime in a political campaign.'” (Seltzer/Citizen Media Law, Levy/CL&P; but see Ron Coleman, Oct. 15: process need not be as slow as waiting period implies).
Related: Does trademark law allow candidates to suppress some types of opposition keyword advertising, as when candidates put up negative ads keyed to each others’ names? [Levy/CL&P]
“Someone dropped in an extra zero, right?”
Ron Coleman is still puzzling over the size of the legal fees (at least $93 million) in the Mattel/MGA Bratz doll trademark litigation (Oct. 16).
Bogus Olympic ticket scam
The (genuine) International Olympic Committee and other defendants should be made to pay, according to Texas-based class-action lawyer, Jim Moriarty, who wants “millions of dollars” for 400 victims worldwide. “The lawyer alleges the IOC was aware beijingticketing.com was operating with trademarked Olympic symbols emblazoned on the site,” but failed to act speedily enough or effectively in getting the impostor site shut down. (“Olympic ticket scam: class action”, Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 23).