Before You Begin The Patenting Process, Read This; Forbes, July 31, 2018

Stephen Key, Forbes; Before You Begin The Patenting Process, Read This

"When I started to file patent applications, I was sure the United States Patent and Trademark Office was against me. My claims were always rejected! I know better now. The USPTO is your friend, not a foe. There is a specific process for examining patent applications. If you’re unaware of how that process works and how to win, you may feel surprised, upset, and indignant upon learning the claims in your patent have been rejected.

Don’t be. It’s all part of the process. To the extent that you can, leave your emotions out of it. Education can help you do that. You must familiarize yourself with what to expect, and act in kind. Don’t let yourself be motivated by fear...

6 Tips To Get The Most Out Of The Patenting Process..."

Can Taste Be Subject To Copyright?; Forbes, July 31, 2018

Leslie Wu, Forbes; Can Taste Be Subject To Copyright?

"Chefs and avid restaurant diners may want to follow an issue that has the legal community abuzz. A new and curious recent court ruling over cheese has broad ramifications for the food industry as we know it. 

The question at hand: is it possible to copyright taste?

Although the subject matter of sensory copyright is vast and often confusing to those outside the legal community, the case of Heks’nkaas (“witches’ cheese”) is an interesting one. According to the company, Levola, who bought the recipe for the cheese spread from a local grocery in 2011, it should be allowed to copyright its cheese spread due to its unique taste. The case was initially dismissed, but has been brought before another court, The District Court in The Hague to revisit the ruling."

As Kit Kat, Starbucks and Posh Spice rulings show, intellectual property is big but bittersweet business; South China Morning Post, August 1, 2018

Stephen Vines, South China Morning Post; As Kit Kat, Starbucks and Posh Spice rulings show, intellectual property is big but bittersweet business

"Chinese trademark law is still very much in the process of evolution and the time it is taking to develop is causing much vexation among international branded goods companies. They are also still engaged in attempts to curb outright trademark and intellectual property theft, which is supposed to have been largely stamped out, but as anyone familiar with hawkers on streets of mainland cities knows, this battle is far from over.

Hong Kong has better established and less complex trademark laws and rules but the local regime is hardly exemplary, as applications for trademarks are known to drag on for a long time and there seems to be a rather quixotic approach to what are regarded as being generic names, as opposed to specific names that apply to individual brands...

The issue of trademarks is one of the biggest aspects of intellectual property protection, which is climbing the agenda of both global trade talks and the concerns of individual companies."

'Peanuts' First Black Character Franklin Turns 50; NPR, July 30, 2018

Cecilia Lei and James Delahoussaye, NPR; 'Peanuts' First Black Character Franklin Turns 50

"It was especially defining for a 6-year-old Robb Armstrong, author of Fearless: A Cartoonist's Guide to Life and creator of JumpStart, one of the most widely syndicated black comic strips ever.

"1968 is a very vivid year for me," Armstrong told NPR's Renee Montagne in an interview for Weekend Edition. Two months after King was killed, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Armstrong's older brother also died that year, just 30 days before Franklin's debut.

For Armstrong, a young black boy who declared to his mother at the age of 3 that he was going to be a cartoonist, Franklin's inclusion was extraordinary."

Honey Badger may not care, but the ‘creative genius’ who took him viral just won a big victory; The Washington Post, August 1, 2018

Antonia Farzan, The Washington Post; Honey Badger may not care, but the ‘creative genius’ who took him viral just won a big victory

"In June 2015, Gordon filed a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment to the greeting card company, saying that the cards were expressive works protected by the First Amendment. Gordon appealed.

On Monday, the appeals court reversed the lower court’s decision, allowing his lawsuit to continue.

In an opinion published Monday, the three-judge panel said that Gordon’s lawsuit against Drape Creative, Inc. and Papyrus-Recycled Greetings, Inc. presents a question that should be tried before a jury: Did the greeting cards add any artistic value that would be protected by the First Amendment, or did they simply appropriate the goodwill associated with Gordon’s trademark?"

The unique legal concept that led to Germany’s weird wifi laws; Quartz, July 30, 2018

Edmund Heaphy, Quartz;  The unique legal concept that led to Germany’s weird wifi laws

"Germany is about to get a lot more free wifi. One of the country’s highest courts has upheld a 2017 law designed to put an end to the effect of a peculiar legal concept known as Störerhaftung as it applies to public wifi networks.

For more than a decade, Störerhaftung—most commonly translated as “interferer’s liability”—meant that providers of public wifi could be held liable for copyright infringement committed by users of their networks. That had an obvious chilling effect: By some measures, Germany, the EU’s largest economy, has around half the number of cafes with free wifi hotspots per capita than countries like the UK, Austria, and Sweden.

The court ruling means that, at long last, German businesses can be confident that the law will protect them from prosecution for such copyright infringement."

A Midwestern chain told Hawaiians to stop using ‘Aloha’ with ‘Poke,’ igniting a heated debate; The Washington Post, July 30, 2018

Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post; A Midwestern chain told Hawaiians to stop using ‘Aloha’ with ‘Poke,’ igniting a heated debate

"The lawyers with the firm represented a company from the city, the Aloha Poke Co., that had jumped on one of the latest food trends — selling the Hawaiian staple poke, made from raw marinated ahi tuna — in 2016 and quickly expanded their reach to more than a dozen locations in Chicago and cities such as Milwaukee, Denver, and Washington, D.C.

[Jeffrey] Sampson also operated a poke shop, a luncheonette of 20 seats that he had opened with three friends in downtown Honolulu that shared little in common with the Chicago chain besides the dish and, coincidentally or not, given the commonality of the Hawaiian word, the name. When Sampson and friends opened the luncheonette about a year and a half ago, they had named it the Aloha Poke Shop, using the traditional Hawaiian greeting and word of welcoming.

Now the lawyers, with the firm Olson and Cepuritis, Ltd., were demanding that he change the business’s name, website, logo and materials to cease using the words “Aloha” and “Aloha Poke” immediately...

In a statement posted on social media, the company said that it had two federal trademarks for its logo and the words “Aloha Poke,” for any use connected to restaurants, catering and take out. It took aim at what it said was misinformation being spread about its intent, and said it was only trying to stop “trademark infringers” in the restaurant industry who used the words “aloha” and “poke” in conjunction with one another."