Sunday, 22 March 2009 @ 12:24pm • My Weblog
As the economy worsens, and the bailouts continue, tax payers are understandably, asking for more transparency about where the money that has been provided to the banking institutions has gone.
As reported by Law.com, the case of People v. Thain has some interesting rulings within it. Specifically, Bank of America must disclose bonuses to staff that were paid by Merrill Lynch as part of the merger between the two organizations, as the organizations received billions of dollars of bailout funds from the federal government
In an interesting application of strategy, Bank of America has cited that information regarding the bonuses that were paid out was a trade secret. A New York court, however, ordered that this information must be conveyed to the New York Attorney General’s office.
Attached is the link to People v. Thain
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Monday, 23 February 2009 @ 12:04am • My Weblog
held a poll regarding the 100 best legal based blogs on the web- the Iowa Estate Plan blog put out by Matthew Gardner got good reviews. Click to see it
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Friday, 19 December 2008 @ 11:52pm • My Weblog
Okay, you’ve just gotten a trademark from the USPTO and you are happily using your mark in the stream of commerce to sell your product ( i.e you are regularly selling your item with your trademark clearly labeled on your mark)
Regrettably, your competitor, who is only three towns over, and sells a product materially similar to yours adopts a logo similar to your logo two years after you are granted your logo from the USPTO and three years after you started using your logo in the stream of commerce.  What are your options, and why should you care? After all, competition is healthy right, and, as the business phrase goes “steel sharpens steel”, right?
Well there are some issues to consider- is your trademark being diluted? Do your clients and potential clients get confused by the similarity of the logos and can’t determine which product is the one they prefer? Are you losing out on potential clients due to the logo confusion and product confusion? The test boils down to whether or not a reasonable consumer would be confused by the similarity of the marks and the products.
If after thorough analysis, you determine that the mark would be infringed, what are your remedies? Despite the bleakness of the situation, you do have options. You can ignore the competitor’s action ( and risk that your mark will become diluted, and your intellectual property rights will be limited as a result) send a carefully worded cease and desist letter, license your logo to your client ( again, causing a dilution problem potentially, but also having the advantage of avoiding litigation) or file suit.
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Thursday, 25 September 2008 @ 11:58pm • My Weblog
As my blog reflects both probate and estate planning issues, as well as copyright issues, I thought I would tackle a question that that has recently been on a list serve.
Copyrights give the author (assuming tha tthe author did not create a work for hire) protection for their work for the life in being + 70 years. Clearly, this is a significant amount of time. This is inheritable property. An estate may well be receiving royalties for the use of the copyright long after the decedent has passed on. The most recent example of this is the Disturbia movie lawsuit that was recently filed, where the estate of the author of the Alfred Hitchcock movie treatment sued for infringement on the copyright.
A trademark, by contrast, is a mark that is an identifier that indicates a particular good or product to a consumer. As such, the trademark passes with the business.
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