Foley Hoag LLP - Trademark, Copyright & Unfair Competition

Big changes may be afoot in copyright law these days, via both litigation and legislation. Courts are considering sweeping infringement claims with potentially far-reaching implications, and Congress is beginning the process of…more

An employer may have rights in a patent on its employee’s invention in three situations..…more

After infamously departing (i.e., being fired) from the nascent production of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, acclaimed stage and screen director Julie Taymor filed suit against the show’s producers. As…more

The first prong of the fair use defense in copyright infringement cases, the “purpose and character of the use,” is often described as an inquiry into whether the allegedly infringing work is “transformative.” In other words,…more

Following the Second Circuit’s remand order last year on appeal of an initial grant of summary judgment for YouTube, the Southern District of New York has revisited the issues in Viacom’s copyright infringement suit and again…more

The Madrid Protocol Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks (the “Protocol”) provides a simple, unified, cost-effective means for citizens of member countries (including the United States) to register their marks…more

Private PublicIn an industry where technology is constantly evolving and racing to keep up with consumer habits, a recent court ruling came down to one basic component: antennas…more

A U.S. federal court has held that the publication by a media monitoring service of excerpts from Associated Press news articles is copyright infringement for which the fair use defense is not available. The Associated Press v…more

Ever since the entertainment industry figured out how to use IP addresses to bring copyright infringement lawsuits against illegal downloaders, defendants and critics have been calling these plaintiffs “trolls”. But…more

A multi-year legal drama over the proper scope of certain sections of the U.S. Copyright Act, as applied to goods made and first sold outside the United States, has finally come to an end. In a 6-3 decision issued yesterday,…more

Nearly thirteen years after issuing guidelines governing online advertising, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently updated its so-called Dot Com Disclosures to take account of the many changes to the online world that…more

Several recent cases have highlighted the interesting issue of whether and when fictional characters – as distinct from the works they inhabit – are subject to copyright protection. Over the years, courts have developed two…more

As we have discussed at length, over the next couple of years several hundred new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) such as .family, .home, and .toys are expected to be introduced into the domain name system. The majority…more

The inner twelve-year old boy in me doesn’t know which is cooler: the throne made entirely from swords for HBO’s Game of Thrones series, or the fact that 3D printer technology can now replicate that throne in my home at the…more

Former U.S. Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, polarizing political figure and active member of the Libertarian Party, is no stranger to conflict, or taking full advantage of intellectual property rights to solve…more