Farmers plant seeds. Where do they get the seeds? Lots of places. Their own crops. Farmer Crawford up the road. Bean sellers. Monsanto. And so on.
What if the seeds use a technique that someone — Monsanto, say — has taken out a patent on? Can you use seeds from a crop that you or
Abraham Lincoln told a story about a lawyer who tried to establish that a calf had five legs by calling its tail a leg. But the calf had only four legs, Lincoln observed, because calling a tail a leg does not make it so. Before us is a case about a lawyer who tried to
Who wrote "I know it when I see it"? Do you think:
a. Jon Stewart, about comedic talent;
b. Rod Stewart, on pulchritude;
c. Jeb Stuart, concerning military audacity; or
d. Potter Stewart, in reference to "hard-core pornography".
The Second Circuit wrote something like that when it ruled on April 25
To Blawgletter's eye, a complaint that alleges patent infringement bears itself with a certain elegance. Such a pleading often runs but several pages, and in substance it states that the Bad Guy defendant does some thing or things that infringe the Good Person plaintiff's patent. And Form 18 — which appears with its brothers and
If you’ve watched a new movie online without paying for it, you likely committed a bad copyright law thingy. You probably infringed.
Naughty, naughty.
How exactly the Internets enable you thus to Reap where you have not Sown, film-wise, may baffle you. It did us. Thanks to the Ninth Circuit, we wonder no more. Or
Wilson Sporting Goods put the number of Jack L. Frolow's tennis racket patent on 14 models of its tennis rackets. It also paid Frolow royalties on 299 racket models. Yet the district court granted Wilson summary judgment on the theory that Frolow hadn't put forward any evidence that the rackets infringed his patent.
The Federal
Charisma . . . is not copyrightable.
SOFA Entertainment, Inc. v. Dodger Productions, Inc., No. 10-56535, slip op. 10 (9th Cir. Mar. 11, 2013) (Trott, J.) (holding that fair use doctrine barred copyright claim for showing of seven-second clip from Ed Sullivan's really big show in musical play about Four Seasons, which launched Frankie
You've heard of the term, "lawsuit within a lawsuit" or "case within a case", right? It refers to a dispute that requires you to prove Claim A in order to prevail on Claim B.
Examples abound. Think of a tortious interference with contract claim. You have to show not only that the Bad Guy did something to interfere
Nike of Samothrace (ca. 190 BC), in the Louvre.
Nike, the Greek goddess, symbolizes victory.
Nike, Inc., which started in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, plays on the triumphalist theme. And this week it won a fight not by conventional means but by fleeing the field of battle.
Nike had sued a rival
