Archive for the ‘Intellectual Property’ Category
Posted November 27th, 2012
From ICANN Blog
To wrap up the series of meetings ICANN convened with stakeholders to find common ground on Trademark Clearinghouse implementation, we conducted a follow-up briefing today for the group who worked on these issues during our meetings in Brussels and Los Angeles.
We discussed two items:
- An update on the Trademark Clearinghouse contract, and
- A way forward on the strawman solution developed during the meeting in Los Angeles.
Contracts
ICANN has continued to negotiate the agreements for database services with IBM and for validation services with Deloitte to include additional terms that will provide ICANN with maximum operational flexibility and guaranteed stewardship of the trademark database.
Here is an overview:
- ICANN retains all intellectual property rights in the Trademark Clearinghouse data.
- Deloitte’s validation services are to be non-exclusive. ICANN may add additional validators after a threshold of minimum stability is met.
- Trademark submission fees are capped at USD 150 per record. Discounts are available for bulk & multi-year submissions.
- IBM will charge Deloitte for database access via an application processing interface (API), and will charge registries and registrars for real-time access to the database during the sunrise and claims periods.
- ICANN may audit Deloitte’s performance (and revenues/costs) to confirm that the costs and fees for validation services are reasonable.
We are moving to sign agreements as soon as possible and the agreements will be posted once signed.
For the full skinny go HERE.
Posted in gTLDS, ICANN, Intellectual Property, Trademark Clearing House by Ken Taylor
Posted May 24th, 2012
From PC Mag
Not surprisingly, settlement talks between Apple and Samsung over their patent dispute have reportedly not resulted in any agreement.
Instead, both sides are back in court arguing over proposed sanctions.
According to a report from The Korea Times, Apple’s Tim Cook and Samsung’s Choi Gee-Sung failed to agree on a settlement that would have ended the companies’ year-long patent fight.
According to court documents, the executives and their legal teams met in a San Francisco courtroom for nine hours on Monday and seven hours on Tuesday. Samsung and Apple have not yet filed documents about what was discussed.
See the full skinny HERE.
Posted in Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted May 1st, 2012
From BBC News
File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.
The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly pirated free music and video. Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site.
“Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.
A sixth ISP, BT, requested “a few more weeks” to consider their position on blocking the site.
BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.
“Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.
“This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”
See the full skinny HERE.
Posted in Compliance, cybercrime, Enforcement, Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted April 18th, 2012
From REUTERS
(Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd agreed that their chief executives would participate in settlement talks to try to resolve a patent lawsuit over smartphone and tablet technology, according to a court filing.
Apple sued Samsung in the United States last year, saying the South Korean company’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copies the iPhone and iPad. Samsung then countersued Apple.
In a court filing late on Monday, both companies agreed to the settlement conference. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday then referred the companies to a San Francisco-based magistrate judge who will lead the talks.
Representatives for Apple and Samsung could not immediately be reached on Tuesday.
For the full skinny go HERE.
Posted in Gadgets, Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted April 13th, 2012
From Bloomberg
More than a quarter of all jobs in the U.S. are with companies that rely on patents, copyrights and trademarks to protect products from competition and promote investment, the Commerce Department said.
About 27.1 million jobs in 2010 were in industries that rely heavily on intellectual property protections, and another 12.9 million positions were indirectly affected. The 75 industries deemed “IP-intensive” accounted for $5.06 trillion, or about 35 percent of the gross domestic product in 2010, according to a study released today by the Economics and Statistics Administration and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
For the full skinny go HERE.
Posted in Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted March 13th, 2012
From Michael Graham and our friends at Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
Since January 12, 2012, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been accepting applications to establish new top level domain name registries (the word to the right of the dot). As of the 10th of March, 254 applicants have registered their intent to apply for new generic top level domains (“NgTLDs”) with ICANN through the TLD Application System (TAS). No count of the number of completed applications will be available until after the process closes on April 12, 2012, and up to 50 new gTLD’s may be applied for by each registered applicant. So, the actual number of new gTLDs for which application will be made is still unknown.
Based on these numbers, and the fact that few companies have announced plans to register .BRAND gTLDs, it appears that most companies have decided not to participate in this first round of applications. Many have expressly stated that the cost and complexity of the application process, the need to form long-term service provider relationships, and the uncertain benefits from registration have led them to delay registration.
However, all trademark owners doing business or engaging in marketing or communications over the internet should be aware of some important dates in the process:
* March 29, 2012 – The final day on which applicants can register using the TAS to apply for a new gTLD.
* April 12, 2012 – The final day on which completed applications can be filed with ICANN. After this date, ICANN will begin the application review process.
* May 1, 2012 – REVEAL DAY – ICANN will publish a list of all the TLD strings for which applications have been filed. This date will also trigger two processes:
* Application Comment Process – Between May 1 and June 30, any interested party may submit comments regarding any of the proposed gTLD’s for consideration by the application evaluation panels.
* Objection Period – Beginning May 1, and for approximately 7 months, formal objections to any of the new gTLD applications based on string confusion, legal objections, community concerns, or limited public interest bases may be filed.
* June 12, 2012 – Initial evaluation of gTLD applications will commence, focusing on possible string confusion, similarity with reserved strings, geographic name ineligibility, or potential instability the gTLD or applicant’s use could cause to the domain name system, as well as applicants’ demonstration of acceptable technical, operational and financial capabilities to run a registry.
* October 2012 – ICANN expects to announce the organization(s) operating the Trademark Clearinghouse and publish their procedures, rules and regulations.
* November 12, 2012 – Initial evaluation period ends and results posted.
* November 29, 2012 – Last day for applicants or evaluators to request extended evaluation to consider additional information regarding application, string, and applicant.
* January 2013 – ICANN expects (1) the first NgTLDs to begin operation, and (2) trademark owners to begin recording trademarks with the Trademark Clearinghouse.
During the application process, all trademark owners, whether or not seeking a gTLD, should re-evaluate and update their policies and plans for utilizing and protecting their trademarks, trade names, service marks, proprietary information and content on the internet. The ICANN program for new gTLD’s sets in motion a number of opportunities and challenges for all brand owners, and companies should prepare now by developing policies and mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement action in readiness for May 1, when the comment and objection period begins. The potential cost of not preparing for the “New Internet” could be far greater than the cost of an application – because brand equity may be at stake.
Posted in gTLDS, ICANN, Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted February 27th, 2012
From Reuters
Proview Electronics, the firm trying to stop Apple Inc from using the iPad name in China, has a plausible claim over the unusual methods Apple used to conceal its identity when attempting to acquire Proview’s trademarks, according to several legal experts.
But Apple also has some strong defenses against a lawsuit Proview filed last week in California – including the argument that Proview cannot sue Apple, but can only sue the corporation that actually bought the trademarks, the experts said.
For the full skinny go HERE.
Posted in Intellectual Property, Tech News, trademark issues by Ken Taylor
Posted January 11th, 2012
In a case brought under the Lanham Act, alleging cybersquatting, contributory cybersquatting, as well as claims of unfair competition, Plaintiff Petroliam Nasional Behad (“Petronas”) asserted that www.petronastower.net and www.petronastowers.net (registered by Go Daddy) were used by one or more non-parties to violate its trademark rights by cybersquatting.
See the full story HERE, HERE & HERE.
Posted in Cybersquatting, Enforcement, Intellectual Property, trademark issues by Ken Taylor
Posted January 4th, 2012
From CBS/AP
In a preemptive strike against a potential disaster, universities across the country are buying .xxx domains that might hurt their reputation.
University of Kansas is securing KUgirls.xxx and KUnurses.xxx before the porn industry can buy the site and cash in on the college’s name. Those aren’t the only URLs that were purchased. Spending a total of $3,000, the university also snatched up kansas.xxx, rockchalkjayhawk.xxx and jayhawks.xxx, among others.
“Down the road there’s no way we can predict what some unscrupulous entrepreneur might come up with,” said Paul Vander Tuig, trademark licensing director at the Lawrence, Kan., school.
Indiana University coughed up $2,200 to buy sites like hoosiers.xxx. University of Missouri, Washington University, Purdue University and Ball State University have also purchased domains.
Corporations had a chance to grab web addresses months ago. Brands like Target, Nike and Pepsi have all paid to protect their brands.
For the full story go HERE.
Posted in Domain Names, gTLDS, Intellectual Property by Ken Taylor
Posted October 27th, 2011
As posted to Wired.com: “A bipartisan group of House members introduced legislation Wednesday that would boost the government’s authority to disrupt and shutter websites that hawk or host trademark- and copyright-infringing products, including allowing the government to order sites removed from search engines.
Much of the package is similar to a stalled Senate measure known as the Protect IP Act. Both proposals amount to the holy grail of intellectual-property enforcement that the recording industry, movie studios and their union and guild workforces have been clamoring for since the George W. Bush administration.”
Click HERE to read the full article.
Tags: Protect IP Act
Posted in Intellectual Property by Kelly Hardy
