Bavarian Orange Miniskirt Girls

Barbara Castelein and Mirthe Nieuwpoort were charged with violating South Africa’s Merchandise Marks Act of 1941 and two sections of the Special Measures Regulation – the same law under which illegal ticket scalpers are prosecuted.

They were among a group of more than 30 Dutch women who attended last week’s Netherlands-Denmark game at the Soccer City stadium wearing orange mini-dresses paid for by brewing company Bavaria. Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court dropped the charges against on Tuesday. The women, who could have faced up to six months in prison.

“They’ve created what could turn out to be an international incident from something that could have been handled adroitly and strategically and turned around.”

Was this in fact Ambush Marketing? The South African Merchandise Marks Act states in sections 15 and 15A that the Minister may prohibit the use of any mark, word, letter or figure, or any arrangement or combination thereof in connection with any event.

FIFA officials took issue with a (very) small “Bavaria” tag on the side of the dresses, which they said infringed the rights of official partners and sponsors who paid millions of dollars to advertise exclusively at World Cup venues.  The dresses had been available free with a pack of beer at gas stations in Holland.  This raises the question:  How visible must the mark be in order to violate the Act?

Furthermore, the Gauteng Provincial Gazette, which defines Ambush Marketing, states:

…marketing, promotional advertising or public relations in words, sound or any other form, directly or indirectly relating to the Competition, and which claims or implies an association with the Competition and / or capitalises or is intended to capitalise on an association with or gains or is intended to gain a promotional benefit from it to the prejudice of any sponsor of, the Competition but which is undertaken by a person which has not been granted the right to promote an association with the Competition by FIFA and whose aforesaid activity has not been authorised by FIFA Competition.

The vague provisions of “directly or indirectly relating to the Competition, and which claims or implies an association with the Competition” would seem to include just about every article of clothing with a visible logo.

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*A special thanks to Duncan and the IP Think Tank team for inviting me to join them on the IP Think Tank podcast 27 May 2010, covering Shanghai woes, Indian oppositions and US patent extensions.

In this podcast, I joined Duncan Bucknell, Vandana Mamidanna, and Weijiang Si for an informative and entertaining discussion about:

• New appeal routes for Indian Oppositions;
• Patent Term Extensions in the US;
• Government IP woes at the Shanghai World Expo; and
• Independent experts in China and the United States.

Thanks for letting me be on the show!

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Almost everybody in this part of the world- irrespective of whether they are hiking enthusiasts/outdoor buffs or not, is familiar with North Face Apparels. In December 2009, North Face filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri for trademark infringement and dilution. South Butt is owned and operated by Missouri University student James Winkelmann who started this apparel line in 2007 to mock North Face.

Early on, upon being threatened by North Face with an infringement suit, Winkelmann offered to sell his enterprise for US $ 1 million. But with the impending lawsuit, the sales for South Butt soared and subsequently Winkelmann withdrew his offer.

This lawsuit in addition to addressing trademark infringement, dilution and unfair competition under the Trademark Act of 1946, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051 (also known as the Lanham Act), also has an interesting aspect of trade dress infringement.

Often times, litigators are so focused upon the “popular” intellectual property like patents, trademarks, copyrights that lesser known, but equally important intellectual property like trade dress gets the step-daughterly treatment. One does not often come across trade dress cases. But two cases where the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari are the Two Pesos case and the Qualitex case.

Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act states inter alia the following:

“Any person who in connection with any goods or services uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or .in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is likely to be damaged by such an act.”

While the Lanham Act does not explicitly define trade dress, a perusal of the above definition makes it obvious that trade dress should be protected. (“in connection with goods or services”…”uses any…symbol or device”).

Drawing parallels between trademark and real property, where does the boundary of a trademark end? How does a second comer in the market get saddled with the label of an infringer? What does trade dress encompass? One looks to the precedents in order to shed some light on these and other related issues.

Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana

This was the first of the two precedents and the facts are as follows.

Respondents are the owners of a fast food chain in Texas and own six such restaurants in San Antonio.  In their words Taco Cabana has the following trade dress:

“a festive eating atmosphere having interior dining and patio areas decorated with artifacts, bright colors, paintings and murals. The patio includes interior and exterior areas with the interior patio capable of being sealed off from the outside patio by overhead garage doors. The stepped exterior of the building is a festive and vivid color scheme using top border paint and neon stripes. Bright awnings and umbrellas continue the theme.”

Two Pesos opened up their restaurant in Houston and adopted an ambiance similar to that of Taco Cabana’s but did not deign to open one in San Antonio. Taco Cabana expanded their market by opening up restaurants in cities where Two Pesos was open and sued Two Pesos for trade dress infringement in 1987 under § 43(a) of the Lanham Act.

Section 43(a) does not mention either trademarks or trade dress. Neither does it mention anything about secondary meaning. Therefore a trade dress need not have secondary meaning in order to be protected. Secondary meaning is only required for descriptive marks.

Trade dress then can be defined as the overall appearance or image of the business in question.

In Qualitex v Jacobson, (this was briefly discussed in my earlier blog post of non traditional trademarks) Qualitex sought protection over the green gold colour of their cleansing pads.

The Federal Court judgment held that no trademark protection can be conferred for mere color. The Federal Circuit at that point of time, was undecided over the issue of trademark protection for color.

There are a few other related cases which are summarized for the benefit of the readers.

• NutraSweet Co. v. Stadt Corp.: absolute prohibition against protection of color alone;
• In re Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp.: allowed registration of color pink for fiberglass insulation; and
• Master Distributors, Inc. v. Pako Corp.: declined to establish per se prohibition against protecting color alone as a trademark.

The Supreme Court put to rest all debates on this issue by holding that color can be protected under the Lanham Act. Even though color by itself is not fanciful or arbitrary or suggestive, however, over time consumers can come to associate a product with the color on its label. (Think yellow “M” for McDonald, red and white label for Coca-Cola for example).

Coming back to the North Face-South Butt debate, it is obvious that South Butt was started as a joke, a parody if you will. The products of the two companies are the same (sports gear); the logo of South Butt is a mere rearrangement of that of North Face’s logo. South Butt may get off lightly on the offensiveness of the name (FCUK got off with no rap on their knuckles) but trade dress infringement definitely exists.

To small timers, the idea of pulling off a joke on major companies may seem like a lark. However, doing so results in a criminal wastage of time and resources which could be spent in developing newer technologies (in this case apparel!). More importantly, if not settled out of court, it is a burden on the justice system and speedy disposal and adjudication of more relevant and pertinent cases is prevented.

However, at this point of time there exists no major deterrent for such cases and one hopes future small time infringers will pay heed to precedents and perhaps abstain from petty infringements.

Today’s post is by Guest Barista Shalini Menezes of ::O.bi:t.er: D:ic.t:um.

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Circa 3500 B.C. Mesopotamian commodities are identified with cylindrical seals and stone seals are found in Cnossos on Crete. Bricks, potter, quarry stones and roof tiles from First Dynasty Egypt from 3000 B.C. have marks believed to be ownership marks. Sixth century to third century B.C. saw the use of stamped ceramics on Greek pottery. Later there has been documented use of trademarks in Roman Empire. Bricks were also stamped with a mark of the maker of the goods.

A trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind, used by an individual merchant or service provider to uniquely identify the source of their products/services to customers and to distinguish their products/services from those of other entities. It gives the consumer the idea that what is presented to him as the product is either what he has already known under the same mark –  i.e., coming from a source he is acquainted with or  that it is what he believes as coming from a similar source.  It distinguishes the goods or services of one merchant from another’s.

A trademark basically performs the following functions:

a) It indicates the source of origin of goods.

b) It distinguishes one merchant’s goods from the other.

c) It indicates that all goods bearing the particular trademark are of a particular quality desired by the customers.

d) It advertises and promotes the goods in selling of them.

Trademark law is essentially derived from the English common law  which in turn originated from the law of torts relating to passing off. In early times, before there was a provision for statutory registration of trademarks, infringement could be stopped by bringing an action of passing off. However, the onus of proof in actions of passing off were (and still are) incredibly high and the only remedy available was injunction.  The main downside of bringing a passing off action is that it is time consuming, cumbersome and the outcome is unpredictable.

It was for these reasons that a system of statutory registration evolved. This recognized a statutory right in ownership of trademark and stated with no ambiguity, the rights conferred through registration and remedies in case of violation of those rights.

A trademark is a visual symbol in the form of a word, a device or a label applied to articles of commerce with a view to indicate to consumers that these are goods manufactured by a particular manufacturer or trader and to distinguish them from other similar goods. A trademark is protected under common law. Recent years have seen the emergence of non-standard trademarks like smell marks, trade dress, etc. Some of these non-standard trademarks were granted (smell of fresh grass for tennis balls) and some were not (smell of strawberry for cosmetics).

Among the three main types of intellectual property of patents, copyrights and trademarks, the important distinction is that in the first two cases the protected right is to the tangible object of creation, in the trademark case – it extends to the public goodwill in the product that a trademark stands for. Copyright and patent protection stem from the desire on the part of the governmental authority to stimulate economic activity by enriching public domain with production of expressive and utilitarian original works. The rationale behind the trademark laws, on the other hand, is based on regulating the quality of information in the marketplace by protecting consumers from misrepresentation by sellers and preventing unfair competition practices.

Copyrights and patents reward original artistic creativity and scientific innovation by securing the rights of authorship, trademarks, on the other hand, allow commercial entities to secure claims to an identity in the marketplace. The property value does not lie within the trademarks themselves, but in the information investments of the companies that they embody.

Since a trademark is just a tool that helps the consumer navigate in the barrage of marketing information by pointing at a particular provider of goods and services, it can be any device – a symbol, a word, a phrase, a sound, a shape, even a color or a smell as long as it communicates a unique identity for the consumer.

Trademark is a means for identifying the merchandise of one trader or service provider from another by some distinguishing mark.  As technology is evolving rapidly, there is an increase in protection being sought for new forms of trademarks. The traditional form of trademarks include a device, brand, heading, label, ticket, name, signature, word, letter, numeral, shape of goods, packaging or combination of colors or any combination thereof.

In recent times all signs audible, visual, tactile and olfactory have become part of trademarks.  Slogans, jingles, tunes, holograms- all these are now practically inseparable from their products.

The main problem in non-traditional forms of trademarks are that protection offered for these are not as easy or straightforward as traditional trademarks. Non-traditional trademarks are more common in foreign territories. If India has to come to par regarding protection of non-traditional trademarks then the statute has to be analyzed from that perspective to see if there is any room for non-traditional trademark protection.

Words, letters, logos and other traditional forms have been used as trademarks the world over.  However, now there is nothing distinguishing about these anymore and the need to attract customer’s attention and even more difficult , to hold it in place has led companies to look toward more novel and innovative ways to distinguish their goods and services. As a result they are looking toward non-traditional forms of trademarks. Non-traditional forms of trademarks, in order to obtain the protection as registered trademarks, must overcome several hurdles. As of today, there is no harmonization where protection for non-traditional trademarks are concerned.

The function of trademark has been discussed earlier. Registration of a traditional trademark in the form of a word name, logo or symbol, phrase or device protects the goodwill of a business and helps to identify and distinguish the source of the goods or services of one merchant from another. Registration of trademark is a sign of ownership of the trademark. The common man starts associating different marks with the quality of goods and the services provided by that business enterprise.

People start associating color, shape and other non-traditional components of the trademark to recognize the source of origin over a period of prolonged use. If these components are not protected as marks, it might easily be copied and infringement could occur. Other novel forms of trademark like smell, sound etc are effective in capturing the consumer’s interest in this age of fast moving technology.

Motion and sound marks are effective in capturing the attention of the internet users as opposed to a sticat mark.

This project will only deal with non-traditional trademarks that cannot be graphically represented, i.e., color, sound, smell and feel.

Color

The royal purple color on a chocolate wrapper distinguishes the goods as Cadbury’s chocolates, irrespective of what language the word Cadbury’s is written in. The red and yellow combined with the M tells us that the food is a product of McDonalds, whether one is literate or not.

Colors and color combinations thus play an important role in distinguishing products. Color transcends the language barrier. A single color, the US Supreme Court held, is never distinctive. In the case of Qualitex Co. v. Jacobsen Products Company Inc., where Qualitex manufactured pads for dry cleaning presses. These presses were a certain shade of green-gold. When a competitor started using a similar color, Qualitex filed suit for unfair competition and sought to register the green-gold color. Thereafter Qualitex added trademark infringement to the suit. The Court was divided over the issue whether color alone can be a trademark. The Court held that color alone can be registered where it has become distinctive of the applicant’s goods in commerce.

In another case, Philmac Pty Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade Marks, the registrar had rejected the application for the colour terracotta as applied to connecting inserts of polypipe fittings. The applicant appealed against this decision. The Court held that the mark had no distinctiveness but could be registered on basis of acquired distinctiveness through use.

The Court identified the following circumstances where color applied to goods would be adapted to distinguish:

1. The color does not serve an ornamental function by conveying a recognized meaning (e.g., red for danger);
2. The color does not serve a utilitarian function by physically or chemically providing an effect such as reflection or absorption;
3. The color does not serve an economic function – that is the colour is not naturally occurring result of the manufacturing process; and
4. The color is not sought to be registered where there is a proven competitive need for the use of color.

Color will not be protected as a mark if it is “functional”- if it makes the product work better or affects its cost or quality. For example, gilding the pages of a book will not be protected under trademark as gold is a standard element in the decoration and is used in bookbinding.

Also, awarding trademark to colors will deplete the freely available reservoir of colors and thus might exhaust the colors available to the traders in a particular field.

Sound

Where sound is used to perform the trademark function of identifying the origin of products or services, a sound trademark would qualify as a non-traditional trademark. Sound marks can function as trademarks or service marks, as source identifiers for goods and/or services. Sounds create an impression in the mind of the people regarding the brand/owner before even looking at the trademark. How often have we heard the Nokia tune or Windows startup tune and identified the brand without looking at the cell phone or the computer?

In the United States, the test for whether a sound can serve as a trademark “depends on the aural perception of the listener which may be as fleeting as the sound itself unless, the sound is so inherently distinct that it attaches to the subconscious mind of the listener to be awakened when heard and to be associated with the source or event with which it struck.” This was the rule applied in the case of General Electric Broadcasting Co.

In this case, the sound mark (for radio broadcasting services) was described as “a series of bells tolled during four, hour sequences, beginning with one ring at approximately a first half hour and increasing in number by one ring at each half hour thereafter.” The Board held that sound marks can be classified as inherently distinctive. The United States has long since recognized sound marks such as the lion’s roar (MGM), the three second chord sequence used with the Pentium processor of Intel, etc.

Coupled with distinctiveness, graphical representation may pose a serious obstacle in registering sound marks. Generally sound mark is represented using musical notation and a written description. However not everyone can read music. Even written musical notes, while indicating pitch, do not indicate tone. Musical notes give a description of the music, not the music itself.

Deposition of digitized recording of the sound is not allowed because publication of this recording is not possible. If it was allowed, people would have to go to the registry to hear it and also, it would be difficult for the registry to store so many sound samples.

Smell

This kind of mark is the most problematic and the issue has been debated for a long time now. There lies practical difficulty in describing such marks.

The first case came about in 1990 in the case of Clark when the scent mark was identified in application drawing as “ a high impact, fresh, floral fragrance reminiscent of Plumeria blossoms” applied to “swing thread and embroidery yarn”. The examining attorney refused to register the trademark on the grounds that the public would not perceive the fragrance as an indication of origin but mere ornamentation. The Appellate Board reversed this decision. The Board’s reasoning was that the fragrance was “not an inherent attribute or natural characteristic of applicant’s goods but rather a feature supplied by the manufacturer.” Other smell marks like “lemon fragrance” for toner, “almond and strawberry scent of goods” were approved.

As mentioned earlier the main problem is graphical representation of the smell mark. The method followed is that used in Ralf Sieckmann v. German Patent Office. The issue in this case was described as whether “balsamically fruity scent with a slight hint of cinnamon” could be registered. The Patent Office refused the registration. Their contention was that “a trademark may consist of a sign which is not in itself capable of being perceived visually, as long as it can be graphically represented by means of images, lines or characters…”

The Court did not elucidate on the method of representation of a smell mark but said that “ a chemical formula, an odor sample and a literal description of an olfactory mark are not, either alone or combined, sufficient graphical representations” because the formula is not understandable, the sample is not durable and the literal description is not sufficiently precise.

Basically smell marks are not registrable usually because of difficulty in graphical representation. Chemical formula representation is not sufficient because the formula represents the substance not the smell. Further, chemical formula lacks clarity and precision, because of lack of technical knowledge of the common man and also because the same substance can produce different smells at different temperatures. Further deposit of the sample with the registry is also not a feasible option.

In Conclusion:

Non traditional trademarks as explained earlier are based on appearance, shape, sound, smell or feel. To be registrable a trademark must pass the test of distinctiveness, graphical representability and non-functionality.

As globalization occurs and the world becomes a smaller place, more and more businesses are going to resort to non-traditional trademarks because of the evolution and growth of several new products and services.

The Indian scenario is such that it still does not recognize non-traditional trademarks. In fact there aren’t any cases on this subject. As India opens up its markets to different products and services and business enterprises, India will have to recognize such non-traditional trademarks as they are gaining acceptance in the rest of the world.

The recent judgment of the Netherlands Court which recognized copyright in a perfume was a landmark case for precisely this reason, that it kept up with the times and awarded protection for something that was earlier considered non-copyrightable as it was not new or original.

Today’s post is by Guest Barista Shalini Menezes of ::O.bi:t.er: D:ic.t:um.

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Jones Day claims service mark infringement, Lanham Act false designation of origin, Lanham Act dilution, and state law deceptive trade practices and unfair competition. Jones Day also moved for a temporary restraining order (TRO), which the parties stipulated to, ordering defendants not to:

1. use Jones Day’s service mark;
2. use any content from or link to Jones Day’s website; or reference Jones Day in Blockshopper headlines.

BlockShopper.com is a web site that reports on real estate purchases in two upscale Chicago neighborhoods (as well as in Las Vegas, Palm Beach, and St. Louis).  It’s a little like the People Magazine of real estate web sites.  Postings generally appear something like:

Patent Lawyer Sells Condo in Metropolis

Jane Doe sold her two-bedroom, 2.1-bath condo at 123 Maple St. in Metropolis for $500,00 to John Smith.  Doe paid $10,000 for for it back in January 2005. Doe is a partner in the Metropolis office of West Coast law firm Reely, Big and Hat LLP. She specializes in intellectual property law for the firm, including patent litigation involved with the gardening arts. She joined the firm in 2006.

Apparently, in serving up info about purchases by Jones Day associates Dan Malone and Jacob Tiedt, BlockShopper used the name Jones Day to identify the employer of each of the two associates, and linked from each associate’s name to Jones Day’s web site. According to the complaint, the defendants used Jones Day’s name, posted information and pictures from the Jones Day web site and put links in the articles to the Jones Day web site.

Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen describes the scenario thusly:

According to Jones Day, linking to its web site dilutes its trademark and creates a likelihood of confusion. But that is preposterous. The link is in connection with a comment on Jones Day; when a trademark is used to comment on the trademark holder, the use reinforces the association with the trademark holder, rather than blurring it, and besides use for commentary is expressly protected as fair use under the Lanham Act as amended in 2006. Moreover, nobody could visit the BlockShopper web site and think that it is sponsored by or affiliated with Jones Day, even if they follow the links from BlockShopper’s mention of Jones Day associates to Jones Day’s own web site. That is what web sites do — they link to other web sites (that’s what makes it a “World Wide Web”).

Blockshopper filed a motion to dismiss and public interest groups (Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) have filed an amicus brief in support of Blockshopper arguing that the trademark claims are barred by the First Amendment, which protects the right to publish truthful information even if the information is about a trademark holder and hence uses the trademark to convey the truth .

In response, Jones Day ups the ante by filing a response against the brief saying the judge should not consider the amicus brief because the groups are “partisan.” It also states that the groups should not be able to file the amicus brief because it doesn’t add anything beyond what the defendant has already filed– while simultaneously saying that the brief shouldn’t be allowed because it adds a new argument.

It is difficult to understand how such a well regarded, multi-national law firm could get caught up in such a no-win situation.  Unfortunately, Jones Day may have boxed themselves in.  It will be difficult to extract themselves from the suit without looking like they made a mistake getting into it in the first place even as they gain a growing body of negative press every day it continues.

(More at: Chicago IP Litigation Blog, Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch, Citizen Media Law Project).

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Johnson & Johnson has sued the American Red Cross, an indisputably highly regarded charitable organization, over ARC’s “commercial” use of the red cross symbol trademark. It seems that the ARC has been licensing others to use the symbol in connection with first-aid type products sold in retail stores. To raise money, of course. That’s generally what charities do in order to fund their services.

Apparently worried about provoking cries of outrage and denouncements of corporate greed, J&J’s lawyers laced the complaint with interesting but mostly irrelevant historical information about ARC’s charter and the utterances of long-dead public figures, to support a suggestion that ARC should only be permitted to use the symbol in connection with its “chartered” (non-”commercial”) purposes. J&J’s people have been busy issuing press releases, too, about J&J’s efforts to be reasonable and seek amicable resolution of the dispute. The complaint has provoked cries of outrage and denouncements of corporate greed.

The complaint alleges an 1895 agreement between J&J and the ARC in which the ARC acknowledged “the exclusive use [by J&J] of a red cross as a trademark”. The complaint also notes J&J’s federal trademark registration for the symbol. Unless J&J amends its complaint at some time in the future, these things, too, seem irrelevant. Why? Because the complaint doesn’t allege claims for breach of contract or trademark infringement.

Instead, it contains only two counts against ARC: First, it alleges a vague claim of “equitable estoppel”, to the effect that because the ARC allegedly said in the past that it would not use the symbol “commercially”, J&J believed it would not do so in the future. In some if not many jurisdictions this would not even be recognized as a valid cause of action. Second, it alleges violation of a 102-year-old federal criminal statute that makes it a crime for anyone to make use of the Greek red cross on a white background (except the ARC and those who were already lawfully using it at the time of enactment — which allegedly includes J&J).

Assuming the ARC has actually violated the statute in some way (how, it is not clear), violation of a criminal statute does not automatically give anyone who objects a private civil cause of action. There has to be an associated, legally recognized civil tort — like trademark infringement — which is not alleged here. You can’t sue me in civil court for parking my car illegally, unless in doing so I am trespassing on your property.

Confused? I am. First, I hadn’t even known that J&J owns or uses “its famous Red Cross design” trademark. No products come to mind. I went to J&J’s web site to look for evidence of use of the mark, and couldn’t readily find any — it may be there somewhere, but I couldn’t find any after 10 minutes. It doesn’t appear on Band-Aids packages. Apparently J&J does use the mark in connection with consumer first aid kits, sold somewhere. But other sellers of first aid kits use cross symbols of varying colors and configurations.

Additionally, the symbol has been widely used to identify sources of medical care, throughout the world. This suggests the possibility that the symbol has become generic, and therefore, unprotectable as a trademark. Perhaps J&J didn’t allege trademark infringement because it is worried about this, or about its ability to succeed in showing that people in the U.S. associate the red cross symbol with any particular organization . . . other than the ARC.

Coupled with this very unclear situation concerning ownership and violation of rights, in an unfortunately typical showing of heavy-handedness, the complaint seeks relief including an injunction, destruction of all of the defendants’ marked goods, packaging and promotional materials, “all profits, gains and advantages derived by Defendants from their unlawful conduct,” “exemplary and punitive damages,” costs, interest and attorneys’ fees. Granted, attorneys routinely put things like this in their pleadings because they think it will instill fear in their opponents, but did J&J consider the perceptions of non-lawyers reading this? Just take a look at some of the blog postings, for example, here.

What is J&J trying to accomplish? Time will tell, but we wonder whether litigation will be a worthwhile endeavor for anyone but the lawyers.

See Johnson & Johnson’s statement on the issues here.

See the Red Cross response here.

Listen to NPR’s Morning Edition story.

Update:

For a timeline of the trademark and an explanation of the legal reasoning behind the suit, see Professor Froomkin’s discourse at Discourse.net.

For some suggestions on resolution, see Victoria Pynchon’s integrated solutions at the IP ADR Blog.

Today’s post comes from Guest Barista Bill Gallagher, a registered patent attorney in Frost Brown Todd’s Cincinnati office.

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