Impact of Mickey Mouse on public domain. The latest artificial intelligence and intellectual property cases - Thaler lost again. Nirvana Nevermind baby gets day in court. Tolkien estate and more.
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New Happy Birthday Song, Copyright-Free
Every year on January 1, new works enter the public domain. In 2023, all literary works, musical compositions, and movies first published or released in 1927 entered the public domain in the United States. Earlier works...more
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated the district court’s opinion and order that Roberto Ramos Perea, the playwright who adapted the novels of prominent Puerto Rican author Enrique Laguerre for theatre, was...more
Addressing the nuanced nature of trade secret protection of patented products, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s trade secret protection determination, finding that the asserted trade...more
At heart, and still, I am a non-singing Jersey Boy, and one who grew up reading Sherlock Holmes stories and watching Star Trek, the Original Series (before it even needed that modifier), in reruns in the 1970s while also...more
The First Circuit seldom delivers opinions on trade secret claims, so employers should pay extra-close attention to the lessons to be learned from the court’s recent decision in TLS Management v. Rodríguez-Toledo...more
On November 20, 2019, the California Court of Appeal confirmed that a patent for a formula does not destroy a formula’s trade secret status so long as the patent does not disclose the process for applying the trade secret. ...more
In 2016, a California jury decided that Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” did not infringe on Randy Wolfe’s “Taurus”. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed that decision and has now called for a do-over,...more
In a unanimous October 26, 2017, decision, the Supreme Court of Florida concluded that Florida common law does not recognize an exclusive right of public performance in pre-1972 sound recordings. Thus, members of the band,...more
In 2006, Warner Bros. filed suit against A.V.E.L.A., X One X Productions, and ArtNostalgia.com, Inc. (collectively, “AVELA”) for copyright and trademark infringement under the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act, and state law....more
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. - In another scathing opinion against the Sherlock Holmes estate, Judge Richard A. Posner ordered the estate to pay attorneys’ fees for bringing “nonexistent copyright claims” as a...more
Led by Judge Richard Posner, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused what Posner called a “quixotic” attempt to extend copyright law. While the holding was perhaps to be expected, the opinion introduced a...more