If a product sells successfully, it is only a matter of time before a competitor copies the design of the product and begins selling a competing version. If the copying is exact, design patents and copyrights on the original design can provide a fairly straight forward avenue for stopping the copying competitor. However, if the [...]
A Big Win For Enforcing Copyright In China It can seem daunting for US companies to enforce intellectual property rights in China, but one US company, Electro-Harmonix Co. ("EHX"), just had a big win against software pirates in China. EHX makes high-end music equipment, and their software for various guitar effects pedals was being copied [...]
The proliferation of distributed computing devices, networked computing, and machine learning is rapidly changing the way we live, work, and play. Recently, the convergence of these trends is being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, or simply I4. These blanket terms encompass a wide range of developments, including the increasing refinement, deployment, and integration [...]
In the grouping of rights that make up intellectual property protections, copyrights are sometimes considered the easiest rights to obtain because a copyright is considered to be created when an original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. As opposed to patents or trademarks, there is no need to register or [...]
Disney and Redbox are currently facing off in a court battle over reselling DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download versions of movies. Disney sells combo packs of their movies that include one DVD disc, one Blu-ray disc, and one download or streaming access code for the movies. The combo packs include packaging language indicating that [...]
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) provides under 17 U.S.C. § 512 a safe harbor defense to copyright infringement for providers that have adopted and reasonably implemented a policy that terminates subscribers who are repeat copyright infringers. Many companies have terms of use and other company policies designed to take advantage of such DMCA [...]
