Commercialization of Intellectual Property
Passage of Defend Trade Secrets Act Provides Silicon Valley Companies New Trade Secret Enforcement Tools
When Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act last week, legislators significantly expanded the tools available to Silicon Valley companies for addressing acts of trade secret misappropriation. Previously, trade secrets law had been largely a matter of state law, and U.S. companies seeking to file a claim for trade secrets misappropriation had been limited to…
Read MoreCopyright Reform on the Table in Congress: Songwriter Equity Act of 2015 Introduced in the House of Representatives
Copyright reform is on the table again in Congress. A bill to amend the Copyright Act has just been introduced: the Songwriter Equity Act of 2015. The text of the bill is available at the attached link. Surprisingly, the bill was introduced by Rep. Doug Collins from the 9th District of Georgia. While the Atlanta…
Read MoreLessons from the Copyright Infringement Verdict Against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams
A verdict was reached earlier this week in the copyright infringement case between Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams and the children of Marvin Gaye, finding that the 2013 song “Blurred Lines” infringed on the copyright in Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give it Up.” Tech Times reported that Gaye’s children have been awarded $4…
Read MorePitfalls in Negotiating and Drafting Exclusive Licensing Deals: Lessons from Macy’s Dispute with JcPenney’s Over its Martha Stewart Product Line
When a new client contacts me for assistance in negotiating a licensing deal, the client almost always informs me that the deal is going to be an exclusive licensing arrangement. However, when I engage the client further to tell me more about the proposed exclusivity deal, in most cases the proposed terms on the table…
Read MorePractical Tips on Choosing your Start-Up’s Name
Given my Silicon Valley location, I often am consulted by entrepreneurs and start-ups who have just started a business and are seeking advice on how to protect their trademarks. However, more often than not, I quickly determine that the name that the entrepreneur or start-up has selected is a poor mark and my advice ends…
Read MoreChallenges of Negotiating a Licensing Deal with a Start-Up
I recently gave a webinar on Negotiating License Agreements with Start-Ups, and wanted to follow up on that program with some comments for Silicon Valley IP Licensing Law Blog readers on some of the challenges that companies may face when negotiating an IP licensing deal with a start-up. In the years that I have worked…
Read MoreGetty Images Copyright Dispute Against Microsoft to Challenge Legality of Recently Released Widget
Getty Images made news in the copyright world this week by filing a complaint against Microsoft Corporation in the Southern District of New York for “infringing and facilitating the massive infringement of [its] copyrights” through its release of the new Bing Image Widget service. To review the full complaint, click here. The case is significant…
Read MoreLandmark Copyright Verdict Against Media Companies Serves as Cautionary Tale to All
In case you missed the headlines late last year, freelance photographer Daniel Morel was awarded a $1.2 million damage verdict against Agence France-Presse (“AFP”) and Getty Images after it was found that they willfully infringed Mr. Morel’s photos of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The verdict caught my attention given the fact so many clients…
Read MoreSupreme Court Rules that Patent Owner Bears Burden of Proving Infringement in Licensing Dispute
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision in the licensing dispute case of Medtronic Inc. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, where the Court held that the patent owner had the burden of proving infringement when the licensee files a declaratory judgment action in a patent licensing dispute. What are the facts in this case?…
Read MoreHow Does an Entrepreneur Protect His or Her Ideas for Launching a New Start-Up?
When an entrepreneur calls me with questions about launching a new start-up, he or she is inevitably concerned about a single issue: protecting his or her ideas. Most are a little disappointed to learn that ideas alone are not something that you can protect with an IP filing. So, if ideas alone are not protectable,…
Read MoreNew Start-Ups Should Consider Collaboration Agreement as Alternative to Equity Agreement
Given my Silicon Valley location, I often receive calls from start-ups who want to “give equity” to a developer that they’ve just started working with. When I receive these calls, I inevitably have a talk with the client or prospective client urging them to consider an alternative: entering into a collaboration agreement with the developer…
Read MoreTechnology Transfer Tactics Interviews Kristie Prinz on Tech Transfer Commercialization Dilemma
I wanted to share with blog readers an interview that I recently had with Technology Transfer Tactics on the issue of whether poster presentations jeopardize a tech transfer office’s commercialization offices. While the issue does not have much application to the business world and is really very specific to the intellectual property which is developed…
Read MoreBacklog Issues No Longer Limited to USPTO; Copyright Office Also Experiencing Long Delays
The Washington Post reported last week that the backlog issues, which once were limited to the Patent Office have now spilled over into the Copyright Office as well. According to the Washington Post, the delays mean that it now takes eighteen months instead of six months to receive a copyright registration, and the expectation is…
Read MoreBlogosphere Reacts to Licensing Terms for Amazon’s New Kindle Publishing for Blogs
Amazon has just released the beta of its new Kindle Publishing for Blogs, and the blogosphere is starting to react to Amazon’s new licensing terms in its terms and conditions. What are bloggers saying? Well, the early consensus seems to be that while the concept of blog content licensing to Kindle is good, the required…
Read MoreCollaborating Can Create Legal Headaches if the Appropriate IP Agreements Are Not in Place
If you run a small business, you have probably given some thought over this recession to how you might be able to collaborate with other businesses to generate some additional revenue for your business. I know that this is definitely something that I have been thinking about for my practice, and it is something that…
Read MoreShould You Look to Your Intellectual Property Portfolio to Get Through This Recession?
Most companies and individuals are looking to cut expenses right now, but have you considered looking to your intellectual property portfolio to generate additional capital? According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, many companies and even individual inventors are doing just that right now: while the rest of the economy is sinking, business is…
Read MoreCutting Legal Costs by Investing in Good Templates
In a recent blog post, AdamsDrafting suggested that the recession should prompt companies to look at overhauling their contract template process. AdamsDrafting wrote A recession should provide a greater incentive for a company to do something about the considerable amounts of time and money that it’s wasting due to its mediocre templates and primitive contract…
Read MoreOpen Source Licensing: Is it a Viable Business Model?
Open Source Software Licensing in its “pure” form is not a viable business model, reported CMS Wire on a study recently conducted by the 451 Group. According to the CMS Wire report, the 451 Group study looked at the business strategies of some 114 open source vendors, and found as follows: -The majority of open…
Read MoreConsortia Licensing: Is this an ideal way to license intellectual property?
The Licensing Handbook Blog ran an interesting posting today on consortia agreements. I am currently in the middle of a consortia negotiation, so the posting caught my attention. The Licensing Handbook Blog posting responded to a posting by SpendMatters, which had stated that participating in purchasing consortia can be an excellent means of leveraging resources…
Read MoreBlog Content Licensing: Is there a market for it?
PlagiarismToday raised an interesting question today when it asked if blog content licensing was dead. I have given several presentations on blog law issues now, but I must say that I had never really given thought to the issue of whether or not there was really a market for blog content licensing–beyond, of course, thinking…
Read MoreBlogosphere Reacts to Associated Press Assault on Fair Use Doctrine
Should the Associated Press have the right to set its own standards as to how much quoting from an Associated Press article constitutes fair use and how much requires the payment of a royalty? The Associated Press (“A.P.”) apparently thinks so, based on recent coverage of its plans to adopt blogging guidelines for quoting A.P.…
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