Wednesday, October 23, 2002

BNA wrote: LANHAM ACT: Trade dress infringement qualifies as "advertising injury" for purposes of the insurance coverage of Lanham Act liability, the Eleventh Circuit rules as a matter of first impression. "Hyman v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. " The court said, "Trade dress infringement may constitute a "misappropriation of advertising ideas or style of doing business."" This is important because under the general liability policy the advertising injury coverage may arise out of such a misappropriation, at least under the form of agreement involved in this case. This was a trade dress infringement case. It wasn't immediately or intuitively obvious that the jury finding against the insured constituted the type of injury the insurance covered. It's important to apply some imagination to these situations and consult with counsel. Here's the URL for the decision: http://www.law.emory.edu/11circuit/sept2002/01-15497.opn.html Noel Humphreys 9:48:02 PM    comment []

BNA said: The incontestable mark "Smart power" for electrical power circuits is a generic term in the semiconductor industry and unenforceable, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holds. Affirming a summary judgment for the defendant, the court is persuaded that the trademark owner failed to rebut overwhelming evidence that the industry uses the term to denote a type of technology, not goods associated with the trademark owner. The court also agrees that the trademark owner failed to rebut the presumptive prejudice for laches that resulted from its 11-year delay in bringing its infringement suit. "Nartron Corp. v. STMicroelectronics Inc. " The Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals wrote: "If a mark's primary significance is to describe a type of product rather than the producer, it is generic and is not a valid trademark." Here's the decision's URL: http://pacer.ca6.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=02a0341p.06 Defendant in this case, the court said, "has only used the term "smart power" to refer generally to technology that combines power transistors and control circuitry on a single integrated circuit. ST alleges that since at least 1988, it has manufactured and marketed products that contain integrated circuits which combine power circuits and logic circuits." Nartron shold have defended the use of its mark "Smart Power" more vigorously than it did and sooner than it did. A trademark owner must keep the market aware that a mark is evidence of source of goods or services, not a generic name for the type of goods or services involved. Noel Humphreys 9:29:47 PM    comment []

WIPO will apparently extend the uniform dispute resolution process for domain name controversies---going after cybersquatters---to intergovernmental organizations and maybe country names. http://ipcenter.bna.com/PIC/ippic.nsf/(Index)/F41BF81C9E696B1F85256C55006521F1?OpenDocument 9:10:53 PM    comment []

Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002 (Introduced in House as HR 5522) is laudable. Let's hope Rep. Lofgren comes back in the next session of Congress in January and reintroduces the bill. It would also be good if the bill went somewhere in the next Congress. BNA says: The "Digital Choice and Freedom Act" (H.R. 5522), introduced Oct. 2 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), would amend the Copyright Act to permit consumers to make copies of DVDs and other digital works for their personal use. The legislation would also allow consumers to bypass copyright protection technologies to make such copies. http://ipcenter.bna.com/PIC/ippic.nsf/(Index)/75DEF0AF1241CB9E85256C4E006E207A?OpenDocument Text of the bill is available at www.thomas.loc.gov. 9:01:31 PM    comment []

Interesting discussion of copyright, distinguishing among the interests of the "creators," the "proprietors" and the public. This account discusses the impacts of so-called "moral rights" of artists as the moral rights idea provides a mechanism for preventing the public from changing copyrighted works. http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/cpu.htm 7:49:12 PM    comment []

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,640388,00.asp 7:36:00 PM    comment []

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/10/21/1449250 7:34:51 PM    comment []

--16 October 2002 This article describes viruses, worms and Trojans and how they propagate. It also explains what anti-virus software does, what to look for when buying the software, and offers basic advice for preventing and managing infections. http://techupdate.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t481-s2123989,00.html 7:29:05 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Noel D. Humphreys.