Alt Legal IP News – Issue #139
Justin Wickersham | May 14, 2019
Tech Problems
– “Spellcheck for buildings” might never make it off the ground due to copyright laws.
– The UK is at risk of losing out in the global patent wars.
– When a group tried to put Georgia’s laws online, Georgia’s lawyers sued for copyright infringement and claimed providing public access to the laws and related materials was a “strategy of terrorism.”
Stage and Screen
– Is Disney the Thanos of the entertainment industry?
– The USPTO refused to allow Prince’s estate to register a shade of purple. Prince’s estate responded with a 400-page filing.
– Guns N’ Roses is suing a Colorado brewery for their Guns ‘N’ Rosé brew.
Law Enforcement
– A judge denied many sealing requests in a patent case, but interested parties still had to fight to learn key elements of the case.
– The USPTO will now allow federal trademark registration on marks for some hemp-based products.
– Selling the NYPD logo is a complicated business.
Odds and Ends
– A jury awarded $3.2 million in damages in a patent case over milkshake blending machines.
– Victoria’s Secret is taking their feud with a competitor to the USPTO. Will it backfire?
– Last week I linked to a story about Apple’s patented pizza boxes. Quartz Obsession did a deep dive on pizza, including an additional pizza patent.
– After an aloha trademark dispute, Hawaii is pushing to protect cultural intellectual property.