Alt Legal IP News – Issue #91
Hannah Samendinger | June 05, 2018
New Developments
– #CockyGate is on hold for now. A judge in the Southern District of New York denied a preliminary injunction based on her analysis of the Polaroid factors. You can read a transcript of the proceeding (worth a read) here.
– The creators of Happytime Murders responded to a lawsuit with a puppet lawyer. Sesame Workshop has now dropped their claims.
– Jerry Seinfeld is facing a bulked-up lawsuit over allegations that he stole the idea for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Snack Attack
– Two bacon giants are in a patent dispute over superheated steam cooking technology.
– Kraft uses patents to dominate the “mac and cheese wars.”
– At least 15 major food brands use different names around the world, sometimes for trademark-related reasons.
History Lesson
– A funny tweet led me down a morbid internet rabbit hole about inventors who were killed by their own inventions.
– This is an interesting read on how a radical Indian poet changed copyright law.
– Curious about common-law copyright for sound recordings? Here is a condensed history.
– A t-shirt maker used a 150-year-old nautical icon to sink a rival.
Odds and Ends
– An heir of an Egyptian composer unsuccessfully tried to enforce moral rights to a flute melody sampled in “Big Pimpin” by Jay-Z.
– A Japanese startup, the “Netflix of furniture,” has pulled most of their collection amid plagiarism allegations.
– The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting for public access to patent disputes.
– IP + Pride Month: Meet the man who kept the rainbow flag free.