Intellectual Property

You’ve finally done it.  Your book has gone to press, the reviews are good, and your friends tell everyone who will listen that they know a published author.  You’re hard at work on the sequel when you get a call from your publisher’s legal department.  Someone has published the…

Led Zeppelin’s 1971 hit “Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most popular and recognizable rock songs of all time. With a re-release of the original Led Zeppelin albums planned for this summer, however, a Philadelphia attorney has expressed his intention to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against the…

  Patent trolling, the latest abuse of the laws enacted to protect intellectual property, occurs when a “patent troll” (sometimes euphemistically called a “patent assertion entity” or “non-practicing entity”) tries to generate revenue by enforcing patent rights against accused infringers, but does not manufacture products or…

To most people, music piracy means illegally streaming or downloading a copyrighted work without payment to its creator. In other words, there is a realization that each and every illegal download of a song deprives the creator of payments he or she would have otherwise received through legitimate…

Last summer, a small band performed at a bar called 69 Taps in Medina, Ohio, near Cleveland. That evening, the band covered a number of popular songs that the mostly middle-aged audience had grown up listening to. The bar had not asked for a set list, nor had the band…

You’ve sat down with your lawyer, put together a stellar social media policy for your business, and made sure that all your employees are aware of the rules. At this point, you might think that you’ve reached a safe harbor and can put the issue of social media…

In this technological age, intellectual property issues often arise in employment, including questions regarding the ownership of intellectual property developed or created by an employee and disputes with departing employees over trade secrets and other confidential business information. As a matter…