Vienna, Virginia-based Immersonal, Inc., a consumer software and technology services company, has been sued for trademark infringement and related claims in Virginia federal court. Radio and Podcast personality, Ira Glass, and Chicago Public Media say Immersonal’s new “This American Startup” podcast infringes on their award-winning “This American Life” radio and…
As noted previously on this blog, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”) permits litigation to be filed against an infringing domain name itself, not just against the owner of the domain name. Which entity should file responsive pleadings in such a case, the domain name or its owner? In Sauikit…
“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” is one of the most popular holiday songs around and is played on radio stations across the country every Christmas season. It is also now the subject of contentious copyright litigation after a federal judge ruled recently that litigation over an allegedly unauthorized…
Does an employer have any sort of ownership interest in its employees’ tweets or Twitter following? This very current social-media question may be tested in a lawsuit originally filed last July in federal court in California by PhoneDog, a South Carolina-based company that reviews mobile phones and services online, against…
Chanel, Inc., which like many other luxury-goods companies has been constantly plagued by counterfeiters, has taken its legal fight against unauthorized knock-offs to a whole new level. On November 14, 2011, acting at Chanel’s request, U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson of the District of Nevada signed an order that not…
If a blog is successful and gains name recognition among the public, with whom is the brand associated in the minds of readers, the publisher or the primary author of the blog? Apparently not a lot of thought has gone into this interesting question, as the New York Times did…
Timelines, Inc., a small Chicago-based Internet company, has lost the first round of its legal efforts to obtain a court finding that Facebook infringed on its “Timelines” trademark when it announced its much-ballyhooed new feature, “Timeline.” On Sept. 22, 2011, Facebook announced the “Timeline” feature, which will allow users to…
United States District Judge John A. Gibney, Jr., sitting in Richmond, Virginia thought so little of the well-publicized shakedown tactics of the new wave of “copyright troll” lawyers–in this case practiced by Richmond lawyer Wayne O’Bryan–that he took it upon himself (without any Defendant asking for it) to issue a…
Is Facebook violating New York privacy laws when it permits children to press the “like” button on the site to endorse advertisements without first receiving approval from their parents? That’s the question posed by a lawsuit filed on May 3, 2011, in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., by the father…
On May 4, 2011, United States District Judge Claude M. Hilton of the Eastern District of Virginia issued an opinion rejecting a claim that LogMeIn Inc., a Boston-area computer-access company, had infringed a patent owned by Canadian competitor 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. Judge Hilton granted summary judgment of noninfringement for…