Category:
Advertising, Communications, Media, PR & Creative Agencies

17/05/16

Playing the Trump Card – The Role of Trade Marks in the US Election

Say what you will about Mr Donald Trump – he never loses sight of a business opportunity. Back in November 2012, immediately after Mitt Romney lost the election to Barack Obama, Trump applied for the trade mark ‘Make America Great Again’, a slogan first used by Ronald Reagan who successfully campaigned in 1980 with the...

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Tats not fair…Who really owns your tattoo?

Solid Oak Sketches, a small agency that represents tattoo artists, is suing Take-Two Interactive and Visual Concepts, the digital games companies behind the NBA2K video game. Solid Oak Sketches claims the companies have infringed their copyright by featuring eight of their tattoos in its basketball video games since at least 2013, with one of the...

Prince lives on, in his trade mark form

Just days before his death, a trade mark application lodged by Prince was approved for publication in the US. The application sought to protect the “Prince” name in classes 25 and 41, covering clothing and entertainment in the nature of live musical performances respectively. The application was filed by Paisley Park Enterprises, Prince’s primary business...

Google Books a win: Media giant wins epic copyright battle against Authors Guild

On Monday, a US Supreme Court decision ended an eleven year battle between Google and the US Authors Guild, under which the Authors Guild had claimed Google’s epic book scanning project breached copyright laws by scanning without permission. Google began the scanning process in 2004 with the intention of including extracts in a searchable database. ...

Trade Mark Vice – Vice Media takes on unsigned indie band ViceVersa

We bring you word of a new trade mark stoush – this time between Vice Media, a company valued at US$2.5 billion, and an unsigned indie band based in LA – ViceVersa. In November last year, the band’s application to have its name trade marked was accepted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. This...

Image rights – the debate continues post mortem

In both Australia and the UK, there is no such thing as an “image right” or “right of privacy” which allows a celebrity to control the use of his or her name or image. This was confirmed by the UK High Court in the Rihanna and Top Shop case[i]. Instead both UK and Australian courts rely...

Not even “Steam” can hide from foreign Consumer Guarantees!

In Australia we have statutory guarantees for consumers under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) (Consumer Guarantees). These are designed to protect Australian consumers from being sold goods or services which are not of acceptable quality or are not fit for the purpose for which they were sold. Under the ACL, consumers are entitled to a...

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