On September 28, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found that even though there was a “better than negligible chance of prevailing” on its claim that gum manufacturer Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company infringed a sweetener manufacturer’s trademark by using the name “Swerve” for a flavor of its popular sugar-free chewing

On October 4, 2012, Google reached a settlement in the Google Books case with the publisher plaintiffs, which include The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Pearson Education, Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and Simon & Schuster, Inc. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) represented the publishers in the settlement, resolving its seven-year

A federal court recently ruled that an unauthorized use of film clips in a documentary film satisfied the requirements of the fair use exception under the Copyright Act. In National Center For Jewish Film v. Riverside Films, LLC (C.D. Cal. Sept. 14, 2012), the defendants made a documentary film entitled Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the

On September 20, 2012, the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, in Harter v. Disney Enterprises, Inc., No. 11-2207 (E.D. Mo. 2012), dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit that claimed Disney stole the idea behind its direct-to-DVD movies about a dog who helps Santa Claus save Christmas.

  On August 22, 2012, the California Court of Appeal validated Amazon.com, Inc.’s (“Amazon”) efforts to police counterfeit goods sold by third-parties on its website in Tre Milano, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. BC460511 (Cal. App.2d 2012). At issue was whether Amazon could be held liable under direct and contributory trademark infringement theories for counterfeit

On September 5, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent Am. Holding, Inc., No. 11-3303 (2d Cir. 2012), held that a single color can be used as a trademark in the fashion industry. The highly anticipated ruling is a significant victory for the

On August 14, 2012, the majority of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Monge v. Maya Magazines, Inc., Nos. 10-56710, 11-55483 (9th Cir. 2012), reversed the decision of the District Court for the Central District of California and held that a tabloid’s publication of copyrighted photographs without permission was not a fair use under

On May 11, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued its long-awaited opinion in Cambridge University Press v. Becker, No. 1:08-CV-1425-ODE (N.D. Ga. May 11, 2012) which examined one of the new ways professors and students teach and learn in the digital age. Although the court found the University’s copyright

This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissals of two right of publicity claims against Corbis Corp. — Shirley Jones v. Corbis Corp. and Alberghetti v. Corbis Corp. In the Jones case, the court held that Shirley Jones, star of the TV show “The Partridge Family,” had given her implicit consent to

The United States Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently put Ralph Lauren’s famous polo player back on his horse in granting the petition of PRL USA Holdings, Inc., a Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation subsidiary (“PRL”) to cancel the trademark registration of Thread Pit, Inc. (“Thread Pit”).