intellectual property law
Intellectual Property at University of Houston Law Center builds on Houston’s Engineering Stronghold
The University of Houston Law Center has a long history of success in Intellectual Property, currently ranked #8 and seemingly full to the gills of engineers-turning-lawyers.
Richard Florida whose Rise of the Creative Class and Flight of the Creative Class are considered seminal works in theories of urban renewal, offers an explanation - Houston is Engineering-ville, […]
Utah Legislators Ban Keyword Ads for Trademarked Phrases
Utah seems to be having a Ted Stevens moment. It’s legislature just passed the Trademark Protection Act which “establishes a new type of mark, called an electronic registration mark, that may not be used to trigger advertising for a competitor and creates a database for use in administering marks.”
For now I’ll leave aside the […]
More on Marshall, Texas, U.S. Patent Litigation Capital
NY Times So Small a Town, So Many Patent Suits
More patent lawsuits will be filed here this year than in federal district courts in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington. Only the Central District of California, in Los Angeles, will handle more patent infringement cases.
Guitar tablature
Music publishers have taken up the copyright jihad in a similar manner to their recording industry brethren, threatening lawsuits against websites that host guitar tablature. From the NY Times -
The publishers, who share royalties with composers each time customers buy sheet music or books of guitar tablature, maintain that tablature postings, even inaccurate ones, […]
Required reading for Patent Geeks
NYU law prof. Beth Simone Noveck has an excellent idea in the Peer to Patent proposal. The idea, as I understand it, is for the Patent office to allow peer review of patent applications in order to cope with the overload and provide a way for knowledgeable individuals to provide evidence of prior art, etc, […]
Quizno’s commercial spoofs cease and desist letters
Quizno’s legal department just got its first screenwriting credit I think. Watch the New Smokehouse Beef Brisket commercial:
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US Copyright Code in Verse
Yes verse, as in poetry. Breathtaking in ambition and somehow triumphally devoid of useful application. I’m nonplussed.
Supreme Court Rethinks Obviousness
The Patently-O Patent Law Blog has a great analysis on the concept of obviousness that will be central in a patent case SCOTUS just agreed to hear - KSR v. Teleflex (Supreme Court 2006)
The doctrine of nonobviousness ensures that patent rights are not granted on inventions that are simply throw-away modifications of prior technology. […]