US Trademark Office Approves Application To Register The Shape Of A Burger; Mondaq, January 31, 2019

Donna A. Tobin, Mondaq; US Trademark Office Approves Application To Register The Shape Of A Burger

"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO")  recently approved registration of the irregular shape of a hamburger patty as a trademark, meaning that the owner of the mark, Bubba Foods LLC (Bubba's) had made a sufficient showing to the USPTO that the below shape of its burger was not functional and that the shape itself serves to identify Bubba Burgers as the source of  burgers so shaped. 

Such marks, known as "product configuration marks" are less common than more typical trademarks, such as names, slogans or logos. However, while the process is not an easy one, such non- traditional trademarks, which can also protect aspects of a product such as smells, sounds and the appearance of a retail establishment, can confer powerful rights on an owner."

Game of Life Copyright Dispute Meets 'Day of Reckoning'; Law.com, January 30, 2019

Scott Graham, Law.com; Game of Life Copyright Dispute Meets 'Day of Reckoning'

"Markham died in 1993. His heirs sued in 2015, invoking a provision of the Copyright Act of 1976 that allows authors to terminate licenses after 56 years in certain circumstances.

But that provision excludes works for hire, and Smith concluded that the Game of Life is a work for hire that was commissioned by Klamer and produced by Markham’s company. “The weight of the evidence in this case is that the success that met the Game of Life was, in fact, nothing if not the result of collective effort,” Smith concluded. “And although the credit, in the colloquial sense, can be split pro rata, the law dictates that the copyrights cannot be.”"

Second China-Bound Apple Car Worker Charged With Data Theft; Bloomberg, January 30, 2019

Kartikay Mehrotra and Mark Gurman,

Bloomberg; Second China-Bound Apple Car Worker Charged With Data Theft

"An Apple Inc. hardware engineer was charged by the U.S. with stealing the iPhone maker’s driverless car secrets for a China-based company, the second such case since July amid an unprecedented crackdown by the Trump administration on Chinese corporate espionage...

As President Donald Trump ratcheted up his trade war with China, the Justice Department in November announced a “China Initiative” aimed at prioritizing trade-theft cases and litigating them as quickly as possible.

San Francisco prosecutors have brought trade-secret theft cases against Chinese nationals who worked for companies as diverse as Micron Technology Inc., a memory chipmaker, and drug maker Genentech Inc. This week, the U.S. charged Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest telecommunications company, with stealing secrets from its American partner, T-Mobile US Inc."

US hammers Huawei with 23 indictments for alleged trade secret theft, fraud; CNet, January 29, 2019

Abrar Al-Heeti, CNet; US hammers Huawei with 23 indictments for alleged trade secret theft, fraud

"The US Department of Justice on Monday charged Huawei with theft of trade secrets, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

A 10-count indictment alleges that China's Huawei stole trade secrets from US carrier T-Mobile beginning in 2012. Huawei also allegedly offered bonuses to employees who stole confidential information from companies. In addition, a 13-count indictment charged four defendants, including Huawei and Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, with financial fraud. The indicted defendants also include affiliates Huawei USA and Skycom.

"The charges unsealed today clearly allege that Huawei intentionally conspired to steal the intellectual property of an American company in an attempt to undermine the free and fair global marketplace," said FBI Director Christopher Wray in a statement. "To the detriment of American ingenuity, Huawei continually disregarded the laws of the United States in the hopes of gaining an unfair economic advantage.""

Video and audio from my closing keynote at Friday's Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain; BoingBoing, January 27, 2019

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing; Video and audio from my closing keynote at Friday's Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain

"On Friday, hundreds of us gathered at the Internet Archive, at the invitation of Creative Commons, to celebrate the Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain, just weeks after the first works entered the American public domain in twenty years.
 
I had the honor of delivering the closing keynote, after a roster of astounding speakers. It was a big challenge and I was pretty nervous, but on reviewing the saved livestream, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

Proud enough that I've ripped the audio and posted it to my podcast feed; the video for the keynote is on the Archive and mirrored to Youtube.

The whole event's livestream is also online, and boy do I recommend it."

Copyright Office identifies visual arts copyright problems, solutions; Lexology, January 24, 2019

Thompson Coburn LLP - Mark Sableman, Lexology; Copyright Office identifies visual arts copyright problems, solutions

 

"Our forms are antiquated and difficult to use. Our definition of “publication” is important but hard to understand and apply. Our process for enforcing rights is tedious, costly, and time consuming.

 

Those are key takeaways from a report by the Copyright Office to Congress about visual works copyrights. And that’s not all of the bad news. In addition to deficiencies in its own processes, the Copyright Office reported the hardly surprising conclusion that people on the Internet often misuse copyrighted works and mislead users about copyright...

 

The report, titled “Copyright and Visual Works: The Legal Landscape of Opportunities and Challenges,” concerns a recent “holistic analysis of the copyright landscape in which visual artists must work.” Based on comments from industry and the public, the Copyright Office identified three major challenges for visual artist copyrights: the registration process, licensing, and enforcement."

Shazam! Vs. Captain Marvel: The Bizarre Battle Over a Name; Comic Book Resources, January 27, 2019

Brian Cronin, Comic Book Resources; Shazam! Vs. Captain Marvel: The Bizarre Battle Over a Name

"Eventually, most fans will only known [sic] the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel as Shazam. It's a bit of a shame, but that's how the intellectual property rights fell."