Can Christian Louboutin Trademark Red Soles? An E.U. Court Says No; New York Times, February 6, 2018

Elizabeth Paton, New York Times; Can Christian Louboutin Trademark Red Soles? An E.U. Court Says No

"The case highlights one of the most difficult questions in fashion: In a world where designers often have distinct styles, and attract admirers based on those styles, what can, and cannot, be trademarked?"

It’s all over: Why the Waymo v. Uber self-driving settlement makes sense; Ars Technica, February 10, 2018

Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica; It’s all over: Why the Waymo v. Uber self-driving settlement makes sense

"On Friday morning, Waymo and Uber settled their trade secrets lawsuit, setting the stage for self-driving marketplace competition rather than a legal battle.

After a drawn-out struggle both in a court of law and the court of public opinion, a settlement is the outcome that makes the most sense for both parties. To borrow a phrase that came out during trial from Uber’s ex-CEO, Travis Kalanick, the deal "minimizes risk, minimizes pain."

Waymo gets what it wants: Uber agreed to ensure that none of Waymo’s "confidential information" would end up in hardware or software produced by Uber’s self-driving division, known as the Advanced Technologies Group. Waymo also will receive a sizeable 0.34 percent equity share of Uber, worth over $244 million. No money has actually changed hands: it’s an all-equity arrangement, which means Waymo is financially invested to some degree in Uber's future. (The New York Times reported Friday that Uber's board had initially offered 0.68 percent, but that proposal was yanked prior to trial. After Thursday's fourth day of trial, settlement talks resumed.)"

Andrei Iancu Named US Patent And Trademark Office Director; Intellectual Property Watch, February 6, 2018

Dugie Standeford, Intellectual Property Watch; Andrei Iancu Named US Patent And Trademark Office Director

"By a vote of 94-0, the United States Senate on 5 February confirmed California intellectual property litigator Andrei Iancu as next director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)."

Marvel Uses DC Comics to Fight for ‘Jean Grey’ Trademark; Bleeding Cool, February 4, 2018

Rich Johnston, Bleeding Cool; Marvel Uses DC Comics to Fight for ‘Jean Grey’ Trademark

"Marvel was invited to respond to submit evidence that “the applied-for mark is used to identify the goods in addition to identifying the character.”

Oh, and while they were at it, confirm that Jean Grey is not a real living person.

Well, Marvel has now responded, and is using evidence of its claims, almost 700 pages’ worth, of images of valid trademarks — mostly from DC Comics — to make its point.

Which is basically a) yes, we can, b) you’ve done it for other people before, and c) you’ve done it for us before."

Responsible Enforcement: How To Handle Copyright Disputes; Forbes, January 31, 2018

Art Neill, Forbes; Responsible Enforcement: How To Handle Copyright Disputes

"Co-author Teri Karobonik contributed to this post*

You’ve started your business and covered all your bases. You’ve got contracts in place and you registered your copyrights and trademarks. But then it happens: you see your copyright or trademark reused without your permission. Or maybe, despite your carefully crafted contract, the videographer your hired to create a promo video won’t give you the video that you paid for. Or perhaps someone just said something really mean about you on the internet. What do you do?

There are many types of legal disputes that you might encounter when you own intellectual property. While we can’t tell you what to do in every situation, let’s break down many of the types of disputes you may encounter and provide some basic suggestions for responding to those disputes.

This is part of 1 of 3 about responsible enforcement in copyright disputes. The next two articles will be about trademark and defamation disputes."

Open science: Sharing is caring, but is privacy theft? by David Mehler and Kevin Weiner; PLOS Neuro Community Blog, January 31, 2018

Emilie Reas, PLOS Neuro Community Blog; Open science: Sharing is caring, but is privacy theft? by David Mehler and Kevin Weiner

"As we are actively figuring out the balance between transparency and collaboration in research, we thought it was worth reaching out to six of our colleagues who have thought extensively about OS. We hope that additional scientists will weigh in with further insight regarding this balance not only in human brain mapping, but also in other scientific fields.

Specifically, we asked them: What are the main challenges in moving toward Open Science and how can we meet them? Here are their responses:

Kirstie Whitaker (University of Cambridge, Department of Psychiatry):

“Change is coming. Before we continue, let’s define some terms for potential readers: Open Science is an umbrella term that can mean different things to different people. Open access research allows everyone to learn from scientific work (particularly that paid for by the tax payer). Open educational resources mean we don’t re-invent the wheel when we teach others about our work. Open source materials are ones that allow you to see inside, and improve, the black box. Open dataallows researchers to verify our work, and conduct analyses that could not be carried out by one group alone.

Open Science also means open to everyone. We can use the power of curious non-experts through Citizen Science projects. The Open Neuroimaging Laboratory was a finalist for the Open Science Prizeand sought to “lower the barriers for researchers, students, and citizen scientists to help scientific discovery”. We can look to other neuroscience projects such as Eye Wire and FoldIt for inspiration in the future.

Finally, Open Science means open for all. Whose voices are not currently represented well in our field of study? Who is not advancing to tenured positions? How do we ensure that researchers in the developing world are able to contribute to our quest to understand the human brain? All of the open practices above facilitate the inclusion of under-represented minorities, but it will require ongoing focus and consideration to create an equitable community. That’s my biggest challenge: addressing my implicit (and explicit) biases to ensure we have bigger, better and more diverse ideas in the future.

I would like to live in a world where helping to advance the boundary of scientific knowledge is rewarded through new findings and by confirming (or not) already published results irrespective of who owns the data.”"

Copyright And Artificial Intelligence; Intellectual Property Watch, January 30, 2018

Edward Klaris, Managing Partner, KlarisLaw and KlarisIP, Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, Intellectual Property Watch; Copyright And Artificial Intelligence

"If a software engineer programs a bot which can generate music, for example, the copyright belongs to the person who created a song by controlling the bot, not the engineer who fabricated the software, nor the bot itself. The monkey may have pushed the camera button, but the photographer owns the copyright.  That’s got to be the rule even in a world where the bot may be operating more on its own and with increasing artificial intelligence.  United States law needs to evolve to recognize that, although a person may rely even 100 percent on a machine to produce original work, the person is the author worthy of Constitutional protection.

Of course, there may well be cases that test this position going forward.  But, in an increasingly mechanized world, we must hold fast to the original principles of promoting “the progress of science and useful arts” by protecting human creativity and innovation."