infringement

I need to give a nod to Omer for bringing this to my attention via DX, because it could have a direct effect on this blog. I remember hearing about the Pirate Act in 2004, and the backlash was similar. The main concern is that it may actually pass on one of the more recent incarnations.I understand the need to protect intellectual property, clearly. However, when the government becomes actively in

It is natural for the owner of a trademark want to seek some sort of redress when another person or entity uses that mark in the URL or the content of a web site, especially when that site competes with...

In the beginning of last December, Klausner Technologies announced that they held patents that the iPhone's visual voicemail infringed upon, and that they were suing Apple and AT&T for around $360 million. Now, nearly six and a half months later, Apple, AT&T and Klausner have finally reached a settlement.

If you’ve been standing on the dark side of the moon for the last few years and have no idea what Daily Blog Tips is, it’s one of the most informed blogs about blogging out there.  Since blogging is a big part of a book promotion campaign, authors need to keep on the up and [...]

Redlasso, a useful but controversial service that lets users grab video clips from television, has just established a Media Advisory Board to help manage relations with litigious content providers. The board includes former Viacom CFO Michael Dolan and former President of Paramount Station Group, Anthony Cassara. The additions come two weeks after the [...]

Photographer Sues Major Daily for Copyright Infringement. Photo of Atty Rod Vera with case document at RTC. Civil case #08-436 for copyright infringement and damages. I finally did it.. with the help of my copyright lawyer atty vera. i sued a major daily, a 108 year old newspaper that used my photo without permission. The same newspaper that [...]

Its Weezy Mania week!! It looks like Lil Wayne's track called "Dying" borrowed a sample from a folk singer by the name of Karma. Karma sued Lil Wayne for using her hook on a song called "Once" which can be found on her MySpace Page. Apparently the music was sampled without her consent where the hook states: "Only once the drugs are done, I feel like Dying!".However - Weezy's label has been tryi

It’s never a good idea for a business or individual accused of copyright infringement to simply ignore the allegations, hoping they’ll go away. This is particularly true when the copyright holder files a lawsuit seeking damages, as the defendant in...

You may not like this one. According to the Vancouver sun, the Canadian federal government is apparently negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws that could make the information on Canadian iPods, iPhones, laptops and other electronic devices illegal as well as increase the difficulty of traveling with said devices. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), if passed

Recently this week I was put onto a new tool for photographers which enables you to upload or link to an image and TinEye will search for that image to tell you where it’s being used. Initially I was very sceptical about the system and didn’t think my image would be found anywhere but it [...]

The AP picked up a news story that Nintendo has recently been ruled against in a $21 million dollar patent infringement lawsuit regarding the Gamecube, Wavebird, and Classic Controllers. This story has been subsequently posted by several gaming blogs all linking to the original AP news article (which can be found here). After reading over the posts that were being made in regards to the patent

Companies concerned about trademark issues should take note of a recent federal court verdict in an infringement case. On May 7, 2008, a jury in Oregon awarded Adidas $305 million in damages for trademark infringement by Payless Shoes, which is...

I’m taking a few hours away from my normal tax reporting to get my house in order - my virtual house, that is. I trademarked taxgirl after years (and years) of use and it is now protected. Despite this fact, there are folks flitting here and there using taxgirl as an identifier and even writing tax-related blogs [...]

A recent opinion from the Southern District of California highlights the difficulties that a trademark owner can face when seeking summary judgment on a claim that a defendant infringed its design trademarks. HIT Entertainment, Inc., et al., v. National Discount...

A Western District of New York Magistrate Judge recently recommended that claims filed by the owners of several copyrighted songs (allegedly performed without their permission) should be dismissed as a result of the plaintiffs’ membership in the American Society of...

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MPEG LA, LLC, world leader in alternative one-stop patent licenses, today announced that several MPEG-2 patent owners have filed an enforcement action in the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New [...]

  I’m writing to let all readers know about image copyright infringement and what recently happened to me. Mid February, I was contacted by a large Image Stock company who specializes in selling images over the web. They sent a long letter and evidence regarding my web site MiamiDreamRealty.com and images used. Apparently, over the last 6 years [...]

Eric Goldman reports that an 11th circuit, US Court of Appeals has upheld a district court’s decision that the use of trademarked terms in meta tags can cause confusion and thus can constitute trademark infringement. North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc. docket number 06-01678 CV-JTC-1 (PDF) doesn’t specifically say if the trademarked terms [...]

“Cybersquatting” has been something fairly common in the industry for a while. I’m sure even some of you that are reading this may buy and hold domains based on the fact that price and value goes up every year. Something however that has a lot of businesses and organizations on the defense is the fact that thousands of domains are registered every year with copyright names within or as a part of the domain registered.The views on this issue are somewhat split. While some ’squatters’ have registered domains to put defamatory content about a company, others have registered various domains and jacking up prices to ridiculous amounts in hopes of a company with that name wanting to buy it.Let me give you one example of what I am talking about. Locally here in the Houston area where ou

Cover bands have long used their passion to perform the songs their idols once did on the biggest stage. However, a little tavern in Spokane, WA is finding out this may in fact be against the law. Known as The Flame, this tavern/restaurant has recently been slapped with a lawsuit due to copyright infringement concerning songs that are being performed for night time entertainment. Local attorneys representing the artists involved have asked that the plaintiffs be paid “no more than $30,000 nor less than $750.” The lawsuit and complaint were released earlier this week in which the attorneys stated, “Neither Defendants, nor any of the Defendants' agents, servants or employees, nor any performer was licensed by, or otherwise received permission from any Plaintiff or any agent, servant or

I just found out tonight that my work has been copied/stolen onto a site owned by Clear Channel. The funny thing is I found out from them. They emailed me asking permission to use the illustration. I did not get back to them right away so they went ahead and used it without permission anyway. Read the email that I just sent them here.----------------------------Emilee,So sorry for taking so long getting back to you. I’m an illustrator that makes a living on selling reproduction rights to my work. I just noticed that you went ahead and stole my copyrighted illustration and words from this page:-friday-growth.htmland posted it on your commercial site on this page: did not give you permission to use that image. Furthermore, I noticed your copyright and trademark info page:-common/tou.html#c

GOOGLE AND MICROSOFT WERE HIT with a lawsuit last week by a company claiming to own a patent on paid search methods??How can this be?I'm quite shocked when I read about this news on a website I just dropped by.click here for the full story

Being a Blogger, I understand How much pain you might be putting in to make your Blog or website !! But what if some bugger is just copying your content and simply pasting it on his blog and sharing your traffic and money ? May be he is featured in a better place on search Engines than you and Google might think you are creating duplicate content . In these kinda conditions , What are you going t

When you see your photos, they really call out to you and tell you and ask you to take a good look at them…. why do people steal photos? because like music they think everything is free online… People have to learn to understand and respect other peoples intellectual property.. they didnt even bother to contact me to ask permission. I would have been happy with a link back to my site.. but no they had to steal it and use it for their site… here is the perfect example that watermarked images are not 100% safe… Banner at the IloiloPhilippines.org website my original image at photo.net.ph Top Banner with rotating images my photo from photo.net.ph Another banner on top page.. here are my photos.. despite flipping the photo i still know its mine.. take a look at the original image and here is the other image stitched to the image on top.. What to do now? well first thing is first… 1. contact the party involved. 2. advise my lawyer of another copyri

Today I was huntting down all the automated blogs that would copy my articles/content without permission. I either reported the blog to its hosting/domain provider, or contacted the owner of the blog which is very rare, since these blogs are automated and have no contact page/email. Anyway, one of these blogs is a free blog from [...]

Adult magazine Perfect 10 earlier filed a copyright infringement claim against Google alleging that Google was crawling the Perfect10.com website and created thumbnails of copyrighted images that were later displayed in Google Image search results. Google did store the thumbnails but argued that image thumbnails were protected under the copyright doctrine of fair use. Now a court has also said that using thumbnail-sized images of pictures does not constitute infringement, even when the images are copyrighted.

Analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura predicts that Apple will attempt to defend it's territory against Nokia for intellectual property rights over the iPhone's touchscreen interface. Apple claims to have filed around 200 patents on the interface, and it is suspected that they will take Nokia to court to stop them from doing so. read more

Got an email from Jeff about his Photos being taken also from his blog by a newspaper in dubai ( http://www.7days.ae/ ) What is it with these newspapers and stealing photos to them seem so ordinary.. is it because they have the power of media and no one dare go against them? The same people that feed the photographers are also the same people that victimize the photographers. I wonder if we stole back from the writers and editors, if they would feel violated. It seems like a very ordinary thing to them. More on Jeff Vergara’s story here http://www.dubaichronicles.com/2007/11/7days-ripped-me-off.html My Copyright Infringement Story here. Sorry Manila Bulletin and Mr Cris Icban, I am not going to let this issue die. http://www.photo.net.ph/blogalicious/2007/10/01/major-daily-violates-photographers-copyright-and-intellectual-property/ Submit your copyright story to www.copyright.ph  - Let the people know what these publications are doing! 

The grounds for a patent infringement lawsuit are not always obvious. Major legal decisions in the past few decades have redefined patent law, largely because of changes in the high-tech world. Among the considerations that the court must take into account when reviewing patent infringement lawsuits are:- the uniqueness of the invention- the validity of the patent- the damages to the patent holder- whether a product encourages others to infringe on a patent- whether a product contributes to patent infringement- the intent of the defendant in making or selling the product or process- whether to assess punitive damages- whether to issue injunctions against further use of the patented processBecause the grounds for bringing suit in patent infringement cases is essentia

The word “infringement” means an encroachment upon the domain of a patentee that is described by the claims of her/his patent. If a patent is compared to a real property, the claims are similar to the boundary recited in the deed. If one commits invasion to the boundary of a landowner’s real [...]

WiLAN a canadian wireless network provider has sued 22 companies including Apple,Intel,Sony,Dell and HP over patents infringement in Wireless technology and power consumption in DSL products.The patent numbers are 5,282,222, RE37,802 and 5,956,323.The suit also accused distributers like bestbuy.In 2005 in a seperate filing WiLAN had out of court settlement with Cisco, where Cisco paid huge sums to buy the infringed patents of WiMax and antenna technology.Cisco also obtained license for WiLAN's products.Other companies covered in the suit are Acer, Atheros Communications, Belkin International, Broadcom Buffalo Technology (USA), D-Link, Gateway, Infineon Technologies AG, Lenovo Group, Marvell Semiconductor, Netgear, Texas Instruments,Toshiba, Westell Technologies and 2Wire.Click here for WiLAN's patents

Carroll Shelby (“ Shelby”) and Superformance International (“Superformance”) have settled their remaining differences regarding alleged trademark and trade dress infringements with regard to the Shelby Cobra and Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe body shapes, and have also agreed to begin working together to advance their mutual objectives of making the highest quality products available to their customers. “I am pleased that Superformance has recognized the value of being associated with the Shelby entities, and on my part, I recognize Superformance in the replica car business for their quality of design and engineering integrity,” said Carroll Shelby, chairman of Carroll Shelby International, Inc. (CSBI.PK). “There are several ways in which a closer relationship between the Shelby entities and Superformance can create synergy that will benefit both corporations, as well as capitalize on each companies strengths,” said Mr. Jim Price, president of Superformance. “For example,

Slashdot Linux walterbyrd writes Just months after the last nail in SCO s case and on the same day as Red Hat s brave words about patent intimidation a company filed the first patent suit against the Linux operating system IP Innovation LLC filed the claim against Red Hat and Novell over U S Patent No 5 072 412 PJ points out there is prior art here You might recall the patent was used in litigation against Apple in April 2007 and Beta News reported at the time that it s a 1991 Xerox PARC patent But Ars Technica provided the detail that it references earlier patents going back to 1984 Read more of this story at Slashdot

ABS-CBN Interactive has put our story in their special feature section. Story can be found here http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=9566 Thank you to Ron Cruz* for feature story. Our original story of the infringement here http://www.photo.net.ph/blogalicious/2007/10/01/major-daily-violates-photographers-copyright-and-intellectual-property/ UPDATE FROM MANILA BULLETIN: Date: October 11, 2007 9:01:53 PM GMT+08:00 This is to inform you that an investigation has been launched concerning your complaint of copyright infringement in the Travel and Tourism section of March 21, 2007. Be assured that we will take proper action on this matter and we will duly inform you within a week. Thank you. Cris J. Icban Jr. ———————————————- *Ron Cruz, a photo enthusiast, works for Creative Communications of ABS-CBN. His photos can be viewed at www.flickr.com/donron

By: Brian ScottWhen you hear about people caught of copyright infringement, many different things can happen to them. First, copyright infringement is both a civil and criminal crime, so people caught of copyright infringement are likely to get both sued and tried in criminal court. Because of the nature of copyright laws, if and when people are caught of copyright infringement, its likely they will get repercussions from far and wide.People are always looking for others violating copyright laws. Copyright owners and/or agents surf the Internet, so they may find the violations themselves. Usually, if someone finds a person violating their copyright rights, theyll notify the person or entities involved and ask they permanently remove the content, if its available on the Internet. They do this by either asking the person directly to take it down, or demanding the website server to take it down (which they will, immediately, and probably suspend the account). If the person or entity hosti

By: Brian ScottIn 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act became a U.S. law. This controversial legislation was designed to bring copyright law in line with developing technologies and to afford protection to rights in the Internet environment.Though vast in scope, one particular area of DMCA is of special interest to those who are suffering from an online copyright infringement. It stems from the Safe Harbor Provisions in Section 512 of the law.In basic terms, the DMCA provides hosts of websites with a form of immunity from lawsuits stemming from copyright infringements that occur on their sites.A host actually stores the data that comprises a website. Most people do not host their own sites and rely upon a host company to do the job. You can think of it in terms of an apartment owner.The owner of the building (the host) rents out apartments (server space for websites) to tenants (webmasters).The DMCA allows the landlord to avoid being held responsible for what tenants are doing in

How annoying it is, spending an awful amount of time researching and writing articles for your Blog, only to find out that some people have stolen your articles and reproduced them in their blogs as though they wrote them. Over the weekend, we decided to take action against one of the several “thieves” and we relate our experience here so that you have an idea how you should proceed when you meet someone who steals your website or Blog contents. Our Blog is exactly 5 months old and if such incident can happen to new bloggers like us, it can happen to you too.CopyrightYou see this legal term often. Basically, what it means is that if you are the author of a piece of work (writing, drama, music score, art, etc.), you own the “copyright” to that work. Under the laws of many countries, your works enjoy copyright protection. You can authorize or prohibit others from reproducing, distributing, publishing, displaying or performing your works.In U.S. for instance, you need not register

Attorneys for the Grammy award winning heavy metal band Metallica filed a lawsuit yesterday against Harmonix and Activision (who recently acquired Red Octane) for copyright infringement. The suit accuses the three gaming companies of illegally distributing copies of Metallica songs in the upcoming and highly anticipated games Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, both due out in late 2007. The suit alleges that both companies planned to package and distribute Metallica music through their video games in what lawyers characterized as a "licensed music to player" system, or LM2P network. Metallica is fearful that album sales could decline if their fans were able to simply walk into any Gamestop or Best Buy and purchase an $80 video game that contained one of their songs.

Reggaeton artist Daddy Yankee was recently hit with a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Victor M. Lopez, Jr., a Latin hip-hop songwriter and performer, alleges that Daddy Yankee used a musical composition he owns for use on “Salud Y Vida,” a track on his album, Barrio Fino which he has yet to be compensated for. Lopez’s lawyer says that they were shopping the song for Barrio Fino, however when the deal fell through Daddy Yankee used it anyway. If this turn’s out to be true you will be seeing dude on the side of the freeway, with his car broke down, screaming “Dame Mas Gasolina”. Eh ah well I dont like Reggaeton aside from the dime’s that dance to it other than that, it’s whatever, ya digg?

Eastman Kodak Co., the world’s largest photography company, sued Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., claiming infringement of four U.S. patents on digital-camera technology. Matsushita, the world’s biggest maker of consumer electronics, is using Kodak’s inventions without permission, Kodak said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Tyler, Texas. Also sued were Panasonic Corp., Victor [...]

Bob Tur, the guy who filmed such greats as the OJ Simpson low speed car chase, the beating of a trucker during the LA Riots, and a bunch of other fun car chases, and other information is thinking about taking on Apple because the Iphone will play his videos that have been uploaded to YouTube without his permission. While the case of secondary liability has been an issue in the past with Zune paying money out to the music industry for every Zune sold to cover copyright infringement, the idea of holding apple liable for playing YouTube Videos has a much bigger audience than is immediately apparent. On Bob’s line of thinking, the Apple Iphone plays youtube videos and is thus liable for secondary infringement of copyrighted works. The interesting part is that just about any media player, any flash player, and any web browser embed will also do the same thing. Let alone the other mobile devices like Motorola, and others. Realistically Bob’s line of thinking is that realistically any de

How annoying it is, spending an awful amount of time researching and writing articles for your Blog, only to find out that some people have stolen your articles and reproduced them in their blogs as though they wrote them. Over the weekend, we decided to take action against one of the several “thieves” and we relate our experience here so that you have an idea how you should proceed when you

In our ongoing series, how much more ridiculous can it get:A record label invents another way to squeeze money from its music catalog. According to NPR, National Public Radio, "The most popular guitar teacher on YouTube saw his more than 100 videos yanked from the site" after a a record label accused him of copyright infringement for showing viewers how to play a Rolling Stone song. This story is surprising even for the music industry who never ceases to come up with new and creative ways to define copyright infringement and to create new sources of potential revenue. The effort to make radio broadcasters now pay royalties to artists and labels in addition to composers and publishers comes to mind. Now I'm sure even the Rolling Stones would be stunned to hear that a record label had resorted to such blatantly offensive means to "protect" its intellectual property but, even more surprising is the consistent lack of any sort of moral compass or consideration for the public good. Is a si

The AP writes that a Texas company has sued Nintendo’s US branch, charging that it infringed on a patent in designing the Wii video game system. Lonestar Inventions has asked for triple damages, but no specific amount, and an injunction against Nintendo using the patented technology. The lawsuit was filed last week in federal district court in Tyler.   In 1993, Osman Akcasu, one of Lonestar’s researchers, patented a structure for capacitors that took up less space on a semiconductor chip by using parallel conducting strips. Lonestar claimed that the same design shows up in Nintendo products but didn’t identify any. Phillip Bruns, a lawyer for the company, said it appears in the Wii.   Julia Roether, a spokesperson for Nintendo, said the company was not contacted by Lonestar before the lawsuit was filed. She also said that because the lawsuit didn’t identify any product or component from Nintendo, it was impossible to comment.   Lonestar is a very

What happens when someone steals entire content of your blog, actually steal unauthorized mirror of my blog which that person injected google ads on it, breaking intellectual property, copyrights, etc, plus profiting from this ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. said on Tuesday that it was suing Google Inc. and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion over unauthorized use of its programming online. The lawsuit, the biggest challenge to date to Google’s ambitions to make YouTube into a major vehicle for advertising and entertainment, accuses the Web search leader and its unit of “massive intentional copyright infringement.” Read it all: Viacom in $1 bln copyright suit vs Google, YouTube | Tech&Sci | Internet | Reuters.com Technorati tags: Google, YouTube, Viacom, copyright, infringement, video, lawsuit Sponsored By: Images by Mike in WNY Coffee Mugs, T-Shirts, Framed Prints, Posters & More

UK based touch sensor engineering firm Quantum Research, which recently openly accused Apple of using its technology in iPhone’s design and even threatened with a lawsuit, decided to back down from its accusations. According to a statement released today, "Quantum has no knowledge of any infringement by Apple of Quantum’s patents in regard to the iPhone or any other product other than those products alleged to be infringing in our 2005 lawsuit against Apple and Cypress Semiconductor, specifically the Powerbook trackpad, Mighty Mouse, and iPod Nano scroll wheel" "Until the iPhone product is made available for public sale, we have to make the operating assumption that no Quantum patents have been violated," concluded Quantum Research. That’s one less lawsuit for Apple. Combined with the recent out-of-court settlement with Cisco, the only potential lawsuit Apple is still facing with iPhone, is from Comwave in Canada. Bookmark to:

One of the most important aspects of choosing a domain name is that it should be non-infringing. This is not an easy task since most unique names have already been registered. The number of useful domain names from the marketing point of view have become extremely limited. Several companies now register variations of their trademark names as a preventive measure against infringement. For example, check www.coke.com, www.coca-cola.com, and www.coca-cola.com, or try www.3m.com and www.mmm.com. All these factors have led to a crisis of domain names and given rise to increasing cases of infringement of domain names. A number of companies have taken legal action against other companies or individuals over alleged copyright violation on the domain names.There are some fundamental guidelines and cross-checks for selection of a domain name.You must carefully select some names that are relevant to your business model. You must be able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domain regis

I have mentioned the fact that another blog in our niche had been systematically using our blog posts without crediting Kevin the Collie as author. I tracked doen the web designers and web hosts and write to them in accordance with help and advice from Lorelle's blog. This is the reply I received: 'To Whom It May Concern:Please note that below-referenced copyright infringement notice does

Analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura predicts that Apple will attempt to defend it's territory against Nokia for intellectual property rights over the iPhone's touchscreen interface. Apple claims to have filed around 200 patents on the interface, and it is suspected that they will take Nokia to court to stop them ...

Maker of mobile device management software, Mformation, has said that they have sued Blackberry maker Research In Motion for patent infringement. According to the lawsuit which was filed in Northern California, Research In Motion is infringed on two of Mformation’s patents. The patents in question are U.S. Patent Nos. 6,970,917 and 7,343,408, and Mformation claim RIM [...]