Nicholas D. Wells was recently named as a Rising Star among Connecticut intellectual property attorneys. Check out the listing at www.superlawyers.com. “Rising Stars” are selected through a formal nomination and evaluation process and are recognized as leading attorneys among those who have been practicing law for less than 10 years. No more than 2.5% of […]
Eleven Costly Branding Mistakes that U.S. Exporters Make
In 2010, U.S. companies exported more than $1.2 trillion worth of goods and services to every corner of the globe. For most of those companies, a strong brand represents the value behind their goods and services. Sadly, many companies take huge risks with their brand when they export. In the process, they confuse customers and […]
Trademarks and the Madrid Protocol: More Countries Continue to Join
The Madrid Protocol, a treaty that permits streamlined trademark applications in multiple countries, continues to expand. The U.S. joined in 2003 and has seen a strong growth in application both coming into the U.S. from other members and originating in the U.S. Here are a few updates on countries that will soon be active members […]
Copyright and Termination of Transfers—The Recording Industry has a Storm Brewing
Last week there was a great article in the New York Times about the looming legal battles over termination of copyright transfers in the recording industry. The legal background is straightforward: when the Copyright Act was revised in 1976, it included provisions that allowed virtually any transfer of copyright (that is, a license from a […]
International Trademarks–New Online Course for Lawyers
I recently finished a one-hour trademark course for Lawline.com. Lawline.com is a Continuing Legal Education site that provides training for attorneys, but you can view free snippets of the full course–divided up by topic–at this URL: http://learn.lawline.com/?cid=1545&title=Benefits-and-Challenges-of-International-Trademark-Registrations. Lawyers who need CLE can register at Lawline.com to see the full course for credit. New York is […]
More international trade, more non-English U.S. trademarks
I’ve been doing some statistical research on how the doctrine of foreign equivalents affects non-U.S.-based companies that want to use their brands in the U.S. An interesting result of my research is this finding: The number of U.S. trademark applications that contain non-English words closely tracks the total volume of U.S. trade with other countries. […]
Data Privacy and the Obama Adminstration–We’re Not There Yet
The Obama Administration has just announced that it would back a broad-based “data privacy bill of rights” similar to what is now in force throughout the European Union under the EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC). We’ve been down this road before, and I don’t think a comprehensive federal bill similar to the EU model […]
Strengthening the First Sale Doctrine in Copyright Law
Under the US Copyright Act, the owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to control certain uses of a copyrighted work. See Section 106 of the Copyright Act. For example, if you write a book, you can control who gets to reproduce (copy) that book. But the rights of the copyright owner are […]
Where are our clients based?
We’re pleased to be helping clients in more than 30 countries. We help them to register their trademarks in the US, we help them with online trademark infringement, with licensing of copyrighted works, and with general business contracts. But where exactly are all those clients? We thought you might be interested, so here’s a list […]
President Obama’s Brand
Love or hate his politics, you probably didn’t forget the name Barak Obama once you heard it. Apparently a lot of people would like to trade off that fact. Since Barak Obama came onto the national scene, over 100 US trademark applications have been filed based on his name, beginning as far back as 2005 […]