Our nation’s great capitol is home to many museums, national monuments, and of course the White House. In addition to all these symbols of American history is The Column. The Column, the centerpiece of the National Mall, is a collection of nineteen steel structures commemorating Korean War Veterans. Tourists gather around these statues with their

CDAS partner Nancy E. Wolff will be on the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) panel, “Everything You Know Is Wrong: Formerly Settled Copyright Issues”, (Monday, July 9th at 3:30pm, in San Francisco). This panel is part of PLI’s seminar “Understanding Copyright Law in the Data Era 2012”. Ms. Wolff and her fellow panelists will address such

Kim Seng Co. v. J & A Importers, Inc., 810 F. Supp. 2d 1046 (C.D. Cal. 2011) In Kim Seng Co. v. J & A Importers, Inc., a California District Court considered the copyrightability of a food display. Kim Seng Co., (“Kim Seng”), a Chinese-Vietnam food supply company sued another Chinese-Vietnam food supplier, J &

South Park, the long running television show, is no-stranger to parodies, spoofing everything from High School Musical to The Passion of The Christ. But their humor was not appreciated by Brownmark Films, LLC, (“Brownmark”), who sued the comedy show for copyright infringement when it made fun of its dance video What What (In the Butt)

Beginning this week and next (check local listings) on PBS and streaming online: From record-breaking crowd-funding, to theaters, to PBS, public acclaim for My Reincarnation has once again given this compelling film renewed life. After an impressive theatrical run, the critically-acclaimed, award-winning documentary was picked-up to make its television premiere on PBS’ POV, kicking-off POV’s

A filmmaker’s rights under the First Amendment to use well-known trademarks for artistic and expressive purposes will be protected against a challenge from the trademark holder so long as the use has genuine relevance to the film’s storyline. On June 15, 2012 the District Court for the Southern District of New York, on a motion

An artist’s right to incorporate trademarks in expressive works pits the artist’s fundamental right of freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, against the desire of a trademark owner to aggressively control the licensing of merchandise based on its trademarks. And when the artwork involves a much-loved college sports team, the tension runs deep.

I Heart Shakey — the first independent family comedy in 3-D — tells the story a 10 year-old Chicago girl’s adventure to keep her dog Shakey, despite her father’s plans. The film has been featured in many articles, including one in the Wall Street Journal, in part as it marks the expansion of 3-D technology

Google Cleared of Java Copyright Infringement: In First Ruling on Copyrightability of APIs, CA Court Finds That Functional Java API Code Is a “Method of Operation” Not Protected By Copyright Law

By Daniel J. Klein Google’s AdWords program is no stranger to legal controversy, having been the subject of several trademark infringement lawsuits in the past.