2018

Latest guidance from the UK Government on implications of ‘no-deal’ Brexit for IP rights holders

On September 24, 2018, the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published a further series of technical notices on how intellectual property (IP) rights holders might be affected if the United Kingdom (UK) leaves the European Union (EU) in March 2019 without an agreement.

Video games, such as Grand Theft Auto®, remain popular around the globe, and two recent matters made headlines on two different aspects of the games: copyright and cryptocurrency.

Copyright

On August 16, 2018, the federal trial court in Manhattan issued

The prevalence of counterfeit goods in Canada reflects weak laws and almost non-existent criminal enforcement within the country, resulting in an appearance of very limited protection for the intellectual property rights of brand owners. As discussed in a recent post

On July 17, 2018, the federal appeals court located in Washington, D.C. issued a ruling in a case involving an intersection of copyrighted material (standards) and non-copyrightable material (laws and regulations). The appeals court remanded the matter back to the trial court, to determine under what circumstances a non-profit organization could publish private standards as part of the organization’s publication of the laws. (American Society for Testing and Materials v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., No. 17-7035 (D.C. Cir. July 17, 2018).)

On June 14, 2018, a federal trial court in New York issued a decision relating to a restaurant owner’s claim that the restaurant manager was using the owner’s trademarks on social media in violation of the federal trademark law known as the Lanham Act. The trial court denied the owner’s claim, in a ruling that provides some useful lessons to anyone who licenses a trademark. (Thousand Island Park Corp. v. Welser, 5:18-CV-117 (N.D.N.Y. June 14, 2018 (2018 WL 29803231)).)