Weekly IP Buzz for week ending April 20, 2018
IP Issues with Virtual Reality; Trademark Registration Mistakes; Common IP Scams
Here's a summary of interesting developments in intellectual property, technology, social media, and Internet law for the week ending April 20, 2018.
New Intellectual Property Issues Emerge with the Advent of Virtual Reality
With the rising popularity of virtual reality, new issues have begun to emerge in intellectual property law. From patent disputes to rights of publicity issues, virtual reality has provided a new realm for legal disputes to arise. In patent law, experts have begun to see a rise in the amount of litigation regarding patent disputes that claim ownership of the underlying virtual reality technology itself. As virtual reality technology continues to advance, and more gadgets are introduced, the underlying patents have become hotly contested. Because virtual reality technology is evolving so quickly, the courts have yet to really define what differentiates one virtual reality technology’s novelty from another. Read more about virtual reality.
4 Common Trademark Registration Mistakes to Avoid
Registering a trademark is an important part of building a brand and growing name recognition. However, trademark filers sometimes make common trademark registration mistakes. The following provides a discussion of these mistakes and steps that can be taken to avoid them. When filing for a trademark registration, applicants must describe the goods and services that they intend to register with the goods and services. One common mistake that applicants make is to limit the goods and services to an overly narrow phrase or description. As such, the trademark, if approved for registration, may not cover the complete spectrum of goods and services that the applicant aims to capture. Read more about trademark registration.
Protect Your Business From These Common IP Scams
Small brand owners and self-proprietors are often the target of intellectual property scams that are intended to elicit quick cash from innocent owners. For instance, a recent story from Nebraska details how a small coffee shop was targeted by these scammers. In Nebraska, the scammers sent an official-looking letter to the local coffee shop advising the owners of Muglife Coffee to register their trademark and brand on “international trademark registries” to potentially avoid losing rights to their mark. The letter asked the coffee shop owner to pay over $2,500 each time to “register” the trademark. Read more about intellectual property scams.
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Darin M. Klemchuk is founder of Klemchuk LLP, a litigation, intellectual property, and transactional law firm located in Dallas, Texas. He also co-founded Project K, a charitable movement devoted to changing the world one random act of kindness at a time, and publishes Thriving Attorney, a blog dedicated to exploring the business of the practice of law, productivity and performance for attorneys, and other topics such as law firm leadership and management, law firm culture, and business development for attorneys.
Click to learn more about Darin M. Klemchuk's law practice as an intellectual property lawyer.
