By the time the 1970s rolled around, there were about fifty breweries in the United States, according to The Economist. A slew of new laws promoting tax breaks for small microbreweries spurred an era of innovation and explosion of smaller, craft breweries. Today, there are over 3,000 breweries, making the…
That is the question posed in a wonderfully entertaining and historically interesting article written by Dave Kluft from Boston’s firm Foley Hoag. As his article points out, accusations of being a “witch doctor” and the use of “witchcraft” have served as a basis for defamation and slander suits around the…
Shaw Industries Group, a leading carpet manufacturer recently sued The Hershey Company in Federal Court in Georgia for a declaratory judgment that its Chocolate Kiss colored carpet did not infringe Hershey’s CHOCOLATE KISS trademark. According to the complaint, Shaw has been using CHOCOLATE KISS as a color in connection with…
Everyone knows a tagline or two-Nike’s “Just Do it”; McDonald’s “I’m Loving It”; Cotton’s “The Fabric of Our Lives”; the list goes on and on. These taglines are essentially a branding slogan used to market or advertise a given good or service. The purpose of a tagline – and a…
Today, a vast majority of us use the Internet at least once a day. In fact, if you are reading this blog, you have just proven my point! Using the Internet has only gotten easier with search engines like Google and Yahoo. So naturally, from a business standpoint, it is…
Section 503 of the United States Copyright Act provides for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringment for willful copying. The statute also provides for attorneys’ fees, costs and lost profits and damages. The Copyright Act applies to all types of creative works, including this one (and all other…
The Hudson River villages are full of talented people who are looking to protect the fruit of their creativity. Many times, however, people are confused by the different types of “intellectual property” that exist, which laws apply, and whether they can actually protect their creative ideas, designs, or other work.…
So, you spend a lot of time blogging, or you have swell content on your web-site which someone has blatantly copied (hijacked). What do you do to protect your copyright or trademark? The Problem The drafters of the Copyright Act (1976)) never contemplated the ease and speed of copyright infringement…