A copyright infringement, trade dress infringement (Lanham Act 43(a), 15 U.S.C. 1125), and unfair competition lawsuit was filed by luxury jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels against supermodel Heidi Klum’s company and jewelry designer Mouawad USA, Inc. in Federal District Court in New York in December of 2007. The complaint alleges…
Pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis filed a complaint in Los Angeles, California District Court seeking a declaratory judgment that three medical device patents are invalid and not infringed by Sanofi’s syringes. The three United States patents at issue, which cover syringes having needle shield safety devices and may be used with pre-filled…
Domain-name arbitration complaint was filed by trademark owner Laerdal Medical Corporation at the WIPO. Laerdal had common law trademark rights in “Laerdal” before it filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on October 16, 2000. The Disputed Domain Name leardal.com – a misspelling of the trademark…
The trade secret and copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Symantec subsidiary Veritas against Microsoft is proceeding to trial in Washington, as we discussed here, when the Court denied Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment. Microsoft had also filed counterclaims in the Washington lawsuit against Symantec for breach of contract and for…
Copyright infringement litigation was filed against Miguel Naranjo by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and Disney Enterprises, Inc. on February 6, 2008 in the Central District of California, Los Angeles. The copyrighted movies at issue are Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Finding Nemo. The complaint alleges that since 2005, Mr. Naranjo,…
A patent infringement lawsuit was filed by tax preparation company H&R Block against Jackson Hewitt on February 8, 2008. Click To Read Complaint. H&R Block is the owner of US Patent No. 7,072,862 and US Patent No. 7,177,829 and asserts that Jackson Hewitt is infringing both patents. The ‘862 and…
A trademark cancellation proceeding – which is similar to a lawsuit – was filed at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) by John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, against Lennon Murphy, the registrant of the “Lennon” trademark. Murphy, a musician, filed an “intent to use” trademark application with the United…
A lawsuit alleging trade secret and copyright infringement litigation was filed by Symantec security products subsidiary against Microsoft in 2006: Veritas Operating Corporation v. Microsoft Corporation, Case No. 2:06-CV-00703-JCC (W.D. Washington). The case arose from a 1996 agreement between Symantec and Microsoft, whereby Symantec had shared its source code in…
In April of 2006, an Eastern District of Texas jury awarded TiVo $73.9 Million in damages for EchoStar’s infringement of several claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,233,389. The ‘389 patent covers digital video recorder (“DVR”) technology that covers time shifting both for previously recorded programs and for programs that are…
Filing a trademark application with the USPTO for a descriptive trademark does not provide enforceable trademark rights until secondary meaning can be established, after which the trademark can be registered on the principal register from the supplemental register. The trademark owner learned the drawbacks of choosing a descriptive trademark when…