The Madrid Protocol, adopted in the U.S. in 2003, is intended to facilitate filing for foreign trademark registration by allowing one application to be extended to 77 member countries, including the major market countries of China, Germany, Japan, U.K. and U.S. 

Despite this benefit, it has not been widely used by U.S. companies, for reasons explained in a recent article entitled "Missing the Mark" in the July 2005 issue of IP Law & Business.

The article explains that a key reason many companies favor individual national applications over Madrid filings is the ability to cover a broader scope of goods ...   more »

July 29, 2005: Judge grants TRO against Goggle. Cnet News story here.

Prior post here.

The resale of genuine products presents particular difficulties in domain name disputes, testing the application of fair use doctrine.  Several domain name disputes involving the resale of event tickets illustrate the point.

I served as a panelist in one such case The Orange Bowl Committee, Inc. v. Front and Center Tickets, Inc., D2004-0947 (WIPO 2005).  The decision, which issued with a dissent, explored fair use in the domain name context and addressed several related ticket resale disputes.

The complainant owned rights in the ORANGE BOWL name and operated a site at www.orangebowl.org.

The respondent was an online ticket broker, and ...   more »

David Kesmodel has a good article on the front page of the July 27, 2005, Wall Street Journal about the use of web page archives by lawyers:

"Lawyer's Delight: Old Web Material Doesn't Disappear."

"Wayback Machine and Google Archive Billions of Pages, Including Deleted Ones."

I echo the comments in the article about the utility of the Wayback Machine in litigation.  The availability of archived pages has made a difference in two recent cases.

For example, we represented an apparel manufacturer in a domain name dispute.  The defendant's president denied any intent to move into the same field and claimed his ...   more »

The business press is recognizing that depositions have become part of business as usual for business managers, according to an article in the July 26, 2005, Wall Street Journal, by George Anders, entitled "Depositions Require A Skill Set Leaders Don't Use on the Job."

Anders provides several useful observations:

1.  Make answers brief and tightly focused

2.  Avoid expanding answer beyond what is asked

3.  Prepare diligently

4.  Stay calm and truthful

5.  Understand your side's legal strategy

6. Don't volunteer

7. Avoid jokes and wit

8. Show you've tried to do a good job

Rashida Y.V. MacMurray has an interesting article in the Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property:

"Trademarks or Copyrights: Which Intellectual Property Right Affords Its Owner The Greatest Protection of Architectural Ingenuity?"

The American intellectual Property Law Association reports that Judge Roberts has experieince as an attorney in several IP cases. 

According to the AIPLA July 25, 2005 Report, Judge Roberts was the successful attorney in:

 Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340, 46 USPQ2d 1161 (1998) 

 TrafFix Devices v. Marketing Displays Inc., 532 U.S. 23, 58 USPQ2d 1001 (2001)

Intergraph Corp. v. Intel Corp., 195 F.3d 1346, 57 USPQ2d 1936 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (2001)

Holly G. Wagner at www.wired.com reports "Roberts' Record Thin on Tech."

See also our previous posts here and here.

Google hiring former Microsoft research engineer leads to legal battle.

"Google countersues Microsoft over engineer"  www.businessweek.com

"Google retaliates to Microsoft's non-compete suit."   www.Earthtimes.org

"Google seeks to stop Microsoft for using new hire."  www.reuters.com

Bill Patry, former policy planning advisor to the Copyright Office, provides more commentary on Judge Roberts and IP here.

Evan Brown has a report on Roberts and the Internet here.

Perhaps we won't hear much about this during his confirmation hearings, but some readers here may find it significant to learn that Judge Roberts has penned one reported intellectual property opinion during his tenure with the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and participated in decisions on two others.

On April 8, 2005, Judge Roberts issued the decision of the court in Universal City Studios LLLP v. Peters, 402 F.3d 1238 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

The case involved royalty claims filed by co-plaintiff copyright owners Universal Studios and MGM Studios ("copyright owners"). Under 17 U.S.C. §§ 111,...   more »

Dear subscribers, 

My apologies for the unwelcome links in a recent comment you may have received.  An anonymous source posted a comment with numerous links to pornographic sites.  If you receive automatic notice of comments posted to this blog you may have received an email message containing those links.  I have deleted the offending comments and hope that there are no further such instances, which would require us to discontinue the comment feature on this blog.

Thank you for your understanding.

Mark Partridge