Troll dolls. Dam Things Establishment marketed
them originally.
The Second Circuit today upheld a preliminary injunction against selling troll dolls. The court held that the Uraguay Round Agreements Act reinstated copyright protection for the dolls and affirmed the district court’s order barring Uneeda Doll Company from further infringement of Troll Company’s copyright in the dolls.
Blawgletter wonders whether Congress and the White House will use the new federal rules on electronic discovery as a guide in the controversy over the unofficial email accounts that some White House employees used over the last several years.
One U.S. Senator doubted that emails no longer exist, stating: “You can’t erase e-mails, not today.
The Seventh Circuit upheld a summary judgment on federal securities fraud claims because, the court concluded, the plaintiffs didn’t present evidence of a causal connection between defendants’ deceptions and plaintiffs’ losses. The court pointed to the lack of proof that the market price of the stock in question dropped soon after the market learned of
The Ninth Circuit today held the term "disinfectable" on nail files generic under the Lanham Act and therefore unprotectible as a trademark. The court pointed out that a valid mark answers "who-are-you" and that an invalid one tells "what-are-you". Rudolph Int’l, Inc. v. Realys, Inc. , No. 05-55065 (9th Cir. Apr. 12, 2007).
Blawgletter(TM) concurs.
Gruff Judge Nottingham, on the bench
since 1989.
As federal jurors in Denver deliberate on the insider trading charges against former Qwest chieftain Joseph P. Nacchio, Blawgletter stumbled across a blawg-worthy reminder of the stakes. As U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham instructed the jury:
The question can never be will the government win or lose
Blawgletter(TM) knows that the Patent and Trademark Office can’t register marks that merely describe a service and can’t designate a source of the service. The owner of Martindale-Hubbell learned the same thing the hard way today, when the Federal Circuit upheld the PTO’s refusal to register "lawyers.com", rejecting it as "generic" under the Lanham Act.
Remember eBay Inc. v. MercExchange LLC, 126 S. Ct. 1837 (2006), in which the Court disapproved the routine granting of permanent injunctions to prevent patent infringement unless the infringer shows exceptional circumstances? The Federal Circuit does. Today it affirmed a judgment of willful infringement but vacated the district court’s permanent injunction because the court
After his heart attack, Thomas Wenner received benefit payments under his employer’s disability plan; but the insurer, Sun Life, later cut him off. The Sun Life notice letter cited Mr. Wenner’s failure to provide medical and personal activity information. But the insurer in fact ended benefit payments because it concluded that Mr. Wenner no longer
Let us stipulate that MSNBC fired Don Imus today for commercial reasons. Let us further concede that CBS radio will likely do the same, and with the same rationale, soon. And let us still more admit that Mr. Imus has hurled plenty of epithets in his almost 40 years of comedic broadcasting — so much
Earlier today, Blawgletter reported a Tenth Circuit decision, under Kansas law, exonerating an insurer that at first refused to pay on a claim but later tendered policy limits. Meanwhile, the Eleventh Circuit held today, under Florida law, that an insurer’s post-litigation offer to pay policy limits doesn’t defeat a bad faith claim arising from the