If the federal government changed the name of Yosemite National Park to something else, would it change the beauty of the natural setting, the breathtaking grandeur of the vistas or even the popularity of visiting the national park amongst tourists? Probably not. And...
A long time ago (circa 1977) in a galaxy not so very far away (our very own Milky Way galaxy) George Lucas unleashed a branding juggernaut when he released the first Star Wars film, Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope. Since then, we've learned to love most things Star...
Ever since I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma, the one thing I've hoped to find under the tree on Christmas morning more than anything else was a Jeep. And, I didn't want just any ol' Jeep. I've always wanted a 1945 Ford "script" Jeep, one of the World War II era...
With Christmas just around the corner, visions of sugar plums and other sweet treats are dancing in consumers' heads as they plan for the big event. Candy and the sugar used to make it are very big business in the United States and account for annual sales in the...
When Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled from 1985 to 2015 in a modified DeLorean DMC-12 in the second movie of the Back to the Future trilogy, they visited the town square of fictional Hill Valley and the courthouse played a key role in getting them back to their own...
Being an attorney, it can be somewhat embarrassing to acknowledge some of the lawsuits that get filed in U.S. courts. The case of monkey selfie is one such case. It seems that wildlife photographer David Slater was taking photographs of Sulawesi crested macaques in...
Authors across the U.S. are outraged by a recent federal appellate court decision they believe nullifies their copyrights in books and magazine articles they've written and unfairly gives Google rights in those works that may (eventually) gut their commercial value....
November marked the 100th anniversary of the issuance of the patent for the iconic Coca-Cola bottle design. Oftentimes cited as one of the best examples of trade dress in the world, the Coke bottle design was originally envisioned as a way to mass produce a drink...
In the world of trademarks, the success or failure of trademark infringement lawsuits are measured by the "likelihood of confusion" standard. Broadly speaking, this means that if consumers are likely to be confused (or, better yet, actually are confused) about the...
Last month we reported on the unusual "right of publicity" case involving Harris Faulkner and Hasbro ("A plastic hamster by any other name..."). You may recall that Hasbro, a toy manufacturer, released a line of plastic toy animals with real sounding names, including...
