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Act Fast to Protect Yourself from the New Domain Names
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
The process just launched for what could be hundreds of new generic top-level domain names (“gTLD’s”). If you want to protect your business from cybersquatting and opportunity loss in those domain names, you need to get moving now. A top-level domain name refers to the part of the domain name after the last dot, such Read the full article…
Police Your Trademarks or They Will Crumble
Monday, December 26th, 2011
Here’s a question for business owners: If you spent a fortune to build a new headquarters for your business, should you save money by not maintaining and securing the property? Would it be better to let the building be looted and crumble? Of course not, yet business owners commonly choose such false savings when it Read the full article…
Does the Employer or Employee Own the Twitter Account?
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Do your employees use Twitter to promote your company or its products or services? If so, think about how to keep control over those Twitter accounts if tweeting employees depart. In case you don’t know how Twitter works, if you have a Twitter account, you can post messages of up to 140 characters. Anyone can Read the full article…
Consider the Total Legal and Management Effort Required to Move to the Cloud
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Many businesses are eager to move all or part of their business computing systems into the cloud. Before taking the leap, give thought to the total cost and legal issues associated with such a move. What constitutes cloud computing is fiercely debated, but I define cloud computing as using software and/or data storage that is Read the full article…
Ten Things about the New Patent Law
Monday, September 26th, 2011
The President recently signed legislation that makes big changes to patent law. Here’s a list of ten (hopefully) interesting things about it: 1. The new law is 150 pages long and is vague in many parts. It will take about a decade of judicial interpretation to make this law as clear as our old patent Read the full article…
Will the New Domain Names Matter to Businesses?
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
Will the new domain names be a big deal, a big headache or just a big yawn? In case you haven’t heard, the organization that oversees the administration and development of all Internet domain names – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – recently announced final plans to process applications to launch new Read the full article…
The Patent and Trademark Office Desperately Needs Financial Independence
Monday, July 25th, 2011
It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme. It depends on a large stream of payments from new customers to fund serving those who have already paid in full. It has a huge unfunded liability in the form of future commitments for which the government has no backing assets. An economic downturn is calamitous because new-customer payments drop Read the full article…
Online Content Aggregators Win Important Case Against Content Creators
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
A recent federal appellate court decision will impact the struggle between those who produce online content and those who aggregate or repackage that content. Unless and until Congress intervenes, the aggregators and repackagers are in a dominant position. This case concerned a financial news aggregation service called TheFlyOnTheWall.com. Fly’s business is to obtain the just-released Read the full article…
In Blogging, What is Fair Use of a News Article?
Monday, May 30th, 2011
When you blog, how much of a news article can you reproduce without becoming a copyright infringer? And, if you reproduce too much, what legal consequences might you face? Let’s take the second question first. You might have the view that, if you reproduce too much, you’ll just take it down if someone complains. That Read the full article…
The New Fast Track for Patent Applications Comes at a Price
Monday, April 25th, 2011
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) just launched a program under which you can have your patent application expedited by paying a $4000 surcharge. Using the program could reduce application processing time to a year, which would shave nearly two years off of average application-processing time. But, unless and until the law changes, this Read the full article…
