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Going From March Madness to Trademarks Madness
Sunday, March 23rd, 2025
How’s your March Madness bracket doing? For U.Va. Cavaliers fans, good basketball is a distant memory, and the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA basketball team just reminded us of the good old days. The Cleveland Cavaliers recently applied to register CAVALANCHE as a trademark. That sent many U.Va. fans into a tizzy. When U.Va. was better at Read the full article…
An AI Maker Was Just Found Liable for Copyright Infringement. What Does This Portend for Content Creators and AI Makers?
Thursday, February 20th, 2025
The makers of generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, just lost the first legal battle in the war over whether they commit copyright infringement by using the material of others as training data without permission. If other courts follow this ruling, the cost of building GenAI will dramatically increase. First, some tech background. To learn Read the full article…
AI Guardrails Will Shape Society. Here’s How They Work.
Thursday, January 23rd, 2025
You will be hearing a lot about AI guardrails. There will be political battles over what they do and whether they must be disclosed publicly. Prominent venture capitalist and computer scientist Mark Andreessen recently said, “AI is highly likely to be the control layer for everything in the world.” Technology providers are pushing this, such Read the full article…
Pennsylvania Jury Sacks Unauthorized Sportswear Vendor Seeking to Score on Penn State Popularity
Sunday, January 12th, 2025
About two years ago, a federal trial court judge in Pennsylvania issued a preliminary decision that scared major colleges and other big brands. The court’s ruling threatened their monopoly on producing fan gear using their logos and school colors. That case recently went to trial, and the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Penn Read the full article…
The RYTR’s Block: How the FTC Wrote Off an AI Tool and the Consequences for AI Innovation
Wednesday, November 20th, 2024
The tension between combatting illegal technology uses and fostering tech innovation was at issue in a recent controversial FTC decision that banned a generative AI tool used for writing write product and service reviews. The case concerned a generative AI writing tool called RYTR (rytr.me), which produces various kinds of content. RYTR generates content for Read the full article…
Employee Use of AI Could Make Your Company’s Work Product Worse. What are the Legal Risks?
Thursday, September 19th, 2024
Deploying AI at a business costs money, and businesses obviously intend to get something positive from using it. Often, the goal is to enable employees to crank out more work in the same time. But what happens when AI makes mistakes? What legal risks could arise from those mistakes? Generative AIs (“GenAIs” in tech lingo), Read the full article…
Two Distant Businesses With Similar Names Butt Heads on the Internet: A Tale of Woe and Lessons Learned
Tuesday, July 30th, 2024
What will your business do when an online-confusion disaster strikes? Let’s suppose your business operates regionally. Out of the blue, you discover an “online rival” – a business operating in a distant part of the United States with roughly the same name that sells roughly the same goods or services. The online rival uses a Read the full article…
The FTC’s Ban on Noncompetes Might Die in Court, But the Legal Tide Still Runs Against Them
Wednesday, July 17th, 2024
You’ve almost certainly heard that the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a rule banning noncompetes. The rule is scheduled to take effect on September 4. On July 3, a federal court in Texas issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, holding it exceeds the FTC’s powers. But, so far, the court’s injunction applies only to Read the full article…
Can You Cash in By Claiming a Trademark on a Trending Nickname, Slang Word, or Phrase?
Monday, July 8th, 2024
It’s as predictable as the sunrise. Some new trending term bubbles up – a new celebrity nickname, or a slang word or phrase – and people rush to the U.S. Trademark Office to file trademark registration applications covering it. For example, 51 people applied to register YOLO (“you only live once”). Can you register a Read the full article…
Businesses Beware: Using AI to Create Fake Celebrity Advertisements Can Get You in Trouble
Tuesday, May 21st, 2024
Imagine Taylor Swift endorsing your product. Can’t afford her? AI can fake it for you! Thanks to AI deepfake technology, you can create a counterfeit but realistic Taylor Swift endorsement without involving her. Deepfakes use computer machine learning to create eerily realistic images, videos, and audio mimicking real people. Scammers used AI to create a Read the full article…
