Guest Post at Internetcases
Evan Brown over at Internetcases was kind enough to ask me to contribute some guest posts to his site. The first of those guest posts appears today. You can read it here.
The Reproduction of Trademarks in a Virtual World
Written in the Trademark Seminar conducted by professor Graeme Dinwoodie, this paper explores the way trademark law applies to the depiction of marks in virtual worlds. The topic was inspired by the ruling in E.S.S. Entm’t 2000, Inc. v. Rock Star Videos, Inc., 547 F.3d 1095 (9th Cir. 2008), where the court found that defendant video game maker was not liable for trademark infringement where it created an in-game parody version of plaintiff’s strip club.
The Reproduction of Trademarks in a Virtual World
Specific Jurisdiction Over Website Owners in the 10th Circuit
Here’s another writing project that I had for school. I examined the requirements for finding specific personal jurisdiction over a website owner in the 10th Circuit.
ACTA Paper
Here is a paper I wrote last spring as a part of my International IP course. ACTA has changed significantly since then, and fallen most of the way out of the spotlight, but I thought the paper might be interesting nonetheless.
ACTA: Changing the Standards for International IP Enforcement
Journal Article
Here is a quick case summary that I did about a case where Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was applied to provide immunity to an anti-virus company. Enjoy!
Lawsuit Bait?
I’m taking a Trademark course this semester, and while I may be no expert, it seems like this is just asking for a trade dress lawsuit. Maybe I’m biased, having worked at an Apple retail store, but I would think that they have probably acquired some secondary meaning with their store layout and design. Everything in the video is eerily similar, down to the cheering-employee welcome.
Whitespace
I’ve been wondering what would happen to all that whitespace left open by the switch to digital TV, and it looks like some enterprising and creative people are already making use of it. As the quote in this post on Boing Boing Gadgets highlights, this is a legally ambiguous area, but the idea of the recently deserted bandwidth as an open area, inviting innovation and exploration, is an exciting one.
Copyright Myths Debunked
There are few things I enjoy more than seeing popular misconceptions debunked. That’s why I really enjoyed reading this post by Jonathan Pink on Bryan Cave’s Art Law Blog, which picks apart eleven myths about Copyright. (via the Chicago IP Litigation Blog)
Summer Research
As school is quickly coming back up on the horizon, I find myself reflecting on the summer that is quickly passing. I’ve been doing research, along with two of my fellow students, for a professor at DePaul, and it’s been highly enjoyable. Our subject has been the proposed Google Book Settlement. We’ve picked-apart the settlement documents, analyzed the legal implications, read and collected the commentary and criticism of the settlement, and evaluated potential objections which might prevent the settlement from being approved.
The work has been challenging, interesting, and enjoyable. It was nice to work with a professor who’s work aligns so closely with my own interests, on a subject about which I was already interested before the work began. It was also nice to recently see some of the results of the work be made public. The professor posted a series of videos on YouTube, which coincide with an article he is preparing to publish. Watching the videos and reading the article, it was nice to see that my work contributed to the analysis.
Politics
More good law school news: Today I was elected president of the DePaul Intellectual Property Law Society. This has been an underutilized organization in the past, but I look forward to turning it into a vehicle to increase the connections between our IP students and the wider IP community. We’ve got a good executive board in place, and I think we can do good things. If you are involved in the IP community, either as an attorney or in another capacity, and you would like to come and talk to some very sharp and enthusiastic students, drop us a line.
