You can’t trademark yellow, Cheerios; , August 25, 2017

Cody Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio; You can’t trademark yellow, Cheerios

"The Cheerios’ shade of yellow isn’t “inherently distinctive” enough to qualify for a trademark, the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled this week.

General Mills had spent the past two years trying to trademark “the color yellow appearing as the predominant uniform background color” on Cheerios boxes, Ars Technica reports.

Turns out the Cheerios yellow is just too average. For intellectual-property regulators to deem a color trademark-able, consumers must consider it to have a certain “distinctiveness.”"

New Balance wins record China trademark award; BBC, August 24, 2017

BBC; New Balance wins record China trademark award

"A Chinese court awarded the US sportswear firm more than 10 million yuan (£1.2m; $1.5m).

Lawyers believe it to be the highest award to a foreign company in a trademark dispute in China.

The country has been tightening its laws to tackle the widespread problem of trademark abuse."

China says will tighten controls over intellectual property theft; Reuters, August 24, 2017

Reuters; China says will tighten controls over intellectual property theft

"China will tighten controls over intellectual property to provide better opportunities for foreign firms, the commerce ministry said on Friday.

The government’s crackdown on intellectual property violations will focus on trademark registration abuse and business secret theft, Wang Shouwen, a vice commerce minister told reporters at a press briefing in Beijing, adding that China’s IP protection was “not perfect” as a developing country.

U.S. President Donald Trump this month authorized an inquiry into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property -- the first direct trade measure by his administration against Beijing."

Here’s a test: What’s your copyright IQ?; AZBIGMEDIA, August 24, 2017

Andrew A. Gonzalez, AZBIGMEDIA; Here’s a test: What’s your copyright IQ?

"Dangerous myths about copyright law …

MYTH: If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it’s not copyrighted.

FALSE. In the USA, almost everything created after April 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people’s works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise.

MYTH: It is okay to copy as long as you give proper credit to the author/artist.

FALSE. If you copy an original writing, graphic, song, or other work without permission, you are guilty of copyright infringement.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA] restricts access to or distribution of copyrighted material.  Violators may be subject to civil and criminal penalties.

MYTH: I goofed and used someone’s graphic on my web page without realizing that it is copyrighted, but I cannot be sued as long as it was an honest mistake.

FALSE. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.  Copyright law does not care about your “intent”, only that you have infringed work of another.

MYTH: It is okay to use less than 10% of someone’s work.

FALSE. Although it may be permissible to use limited portions of a work for limited purposes, there is no rule permitting a certain percentage of the work to be reproduced, distributed, performed or translated."

Will TPP-11 Nations Escape the Copyright Trap?; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), August 23, 2017

Jyoti Panday, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Will TPP-11 Nations Escape the Copyright Trap?

"Latest reports confirm that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being revived. The agreement had been shelved following the withdrawal of the U.S. from the negotiation process. Over the past year, countries eager to keep the pact alive have continued dialogue and rallied support of less enthusiastic members to move forward with the agreement without the U.S. A revised framework is expected to be proposed for approval at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) TPP-11 Ministerial Meeting in November.

We had previously reported the remaining eleven nations (TPP-11) had launched a process to assess options and consensus on how the agreement should be brought into force. A recent statement by New Zealand's Prime Minister suggests that countries favor an approach that seeks to replicate TPP provisions with minimal number of changes."

Microsoft v MikeRoweSoft and Iceland v Iceland: Five of the strangest trademark disputes; Telegraph, August 18, 2017

Sophie Christie, Telegraph; Microsoft v MikeRoweSoft and Iceland v Iceland: Five of the strangest trademark disputes

"Poundland is in the middle of a legal dispute with US food giant Mondelēz over the trademarking of the Toblerone chocolate bar.

The budget retailer has claimed that Toblerone is no longer distinctive enough to be a valid trademark, as it attempts to defend its right to launch its own bar Twin Peaks.

The legal wrangle is one of many brand name battles over trademarks. We take a look at five of the biggest - and most surprising - below."

With ‘Open Access,’ the Met Museum’s Digital Operation Has a Bona Fide Hit on Its Hands; artnetnews, August 10, 2017

Sarah Cascone, artnetnews; With ‘Open Access,’ the Met Museum’s Digital Operation Has a Bona Fide Hit on Its Hands

"In February, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it was pursuing a new Open Access policy—releasing high-resolution imagery of all its public-domain works (over 375,000 in total). Six months later, the new initiative has had a major impact on sites such as Wikimedia and Creative Commons, and the museum is continuing to branch out. This week, the Met announced a partnership with Google’s data analytics platform, BigQuery.

“During what is just the dawn of this new initiative, the responses so far have been incredible,” wrote Loic Tallon, the museum’s chief digital officer, in a blog post.

The numbers speak for themselves. According to Tallon, the Met’s website has seen a 64 percent increase in image downloads since Open Access was implemented, as well as a 17 percent bump in traffic to the online collection. Users who download photographs are now spending five times as long on the site."