The courts have been busy lately reviewing federal trademark law. Understanding new decisions and recent trends is important for all growing businesses, since company brands, logos, and slogans are oftentimes their most valuable assets.

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After CBS "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert told viewers that lawyers representing his old Comedy Central show said he couldn't be "Stephen Colbert" anymore, he thumbed his nose at them with a transparent dodge.

Tagged with: CBS Intellectual Property Stephen Colbert The Colbert Report The Late Show

A software engineer is charged in federal court in Milwaukee with stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Rockwell Automation.

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A federal jury in Wisconsin has awarded health care software firm Epic nearly $1 billion in damages in its lawsuit against an Indian firm it had accused of stealing trade secrets.

Tagged with: health care Intellectual Property William Conley

A federal jury has found Apple Inc. infringed on a technology patent held by the foundation that protects the University of Wisconsin's intellectual property.

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Remember the Marlboro Man, that stalwart image forever linked to the American West? A symbol of ruggedness, he was used by the Philip Morris tobacco company to sell millions and millions of cigarettes from 1954 to 1999.

Tagged with: Copyright Intellectual Property Social media Trademarks

Protecting a company’s intellectual property can create benefits. An incomplete IP strategy, however, may leave a company with gaps that undermine the efforts (and expenses) that it took to protect its IP in the first place.

Tagged with: Intellectual Property IP technology Trademarks

A lot has changed in the realm of intellectual property law following the record-breaking 10 IP cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2013 term.

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Intellectual property attorneys who challenge decisions before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board say a recent Federal Circuit ruling means they no longer can be barred from introducing new evidence in appeals at the U.S. District Court.

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While everyone has been fixated on patent trolls, experts say a different breed of abusive intellectual-property litigants have been making a comeback: businesses that assert dubious patents for strategic reasons.

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Public transit agencies nationwide are being targeted with questionable lawsuits by so-called patent trolls squeezing settlements out of financially strapped public entities unable to mount legal defenses against claims they are infringing on intellectual property protections, industry representatives said Thursday.

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Plaintiffs Rockwell Automation Inc., a Wisconsin corporation, and Rockwell Automation Technologies Inc., an Ohio corporation, filed a lawsuit Nov. 16, 2010, in federal court against defendants Germantown-based WAGO Corp. and its German parent company, WAGO Kontakttechnik GmbH & Co. KG.

Tagged with: Axley Brynelson Intellectual Property Michael Best & Friedrich Patent infringement patent suit Quarles & Brady Stephen Crocker U.S. District Court Western District of Wisconsin William Conley

Protecting rights has always been a challenge for intellectual property owners because of the relative ease with which pirates can steal their work.

Tagged with: copyright infringement Intellectual Property U.S. Supreme Court

From coffee pods to comic book characters, attorney Allen Arntsen is busy protecting the intellectual property of his many clients.

Tagged with: Foley & Lardner Intellectual Property

Intellectual property law is no place for sugarcoating, according to James Boyle, a founding shareholder at Boyle Fredrickson SC, Milwaukee.

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Jessica Lewis has a bachelor’s degree in zoology and a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology. So, of course, she became a lawyer.

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In a major milestone in the smartphone patent wars, a federal jury recently found that Apple Inc. infringed on three patents in its iPhone with regard to the camera feature and the handling and rejection of calls.

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Intellectual property is one of the most complicated areas of law. Love it or hate it, at some point or another every in-house lawyer is going to be faced with some type of IP dispute.

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Some theft of intellectual property is easy to spot. Think of a black market in Shanghai where for a few dollars visitors can snap up DVDs of “Hugo” or some other movie still playing in American theaters.

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Despite sobering unemployment numbers across the country, employment for lawyers continues to be promising in the hottest practice areas.

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Intellectual property lawyers could get a lot more work if President Barack Obama follows through on his promise to create entrepreneurial jobs by overhauling the U.S. patent system.

Tagged with: Boyle Fredrickson SC Congress Intellectual Property Kirk Deheck patent

Intellectual property lawyers say the biotech field dodged a bullet with a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit finding human genes are patentable.

Tagged with: DNA Intellectual Property U.S. Court of Appeals

Intellectual Property Copyright; breach

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Intellectual Property Patent infringement; invalidity defense Section 282 of the Patent Act of 1952 requires an invalidity defense to be proved by clear and convincing evidence. The Court rejects Microsoft’s contention that a defendant need only persuade the jury of ...

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Intellectual Property Copyright; mathematical equations Mathematical equations cannot be copyrighted. “On appeal, Professor Ho and Ms. Huang maintain that there are numerous ways to express the Model and therefore that, as a consequence, the merger doctrine does not apply. The ...

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Intellectual Property Patents; federal contractors The Bayh-Dole Act does not automatically vest title to federally funded  inventions in federal contractors or authorize contractors to unilaterally take  title to such inventions. Section 202(a), which states that contractors may “elect to retain ...

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Intellectual Property Patents; induced infringement Induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. 271(b) requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement. Induced infringement was not considered a separate theory of indirect liability in the pre-1952 case law, but was treated as ...

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Intellectual Property Trademarks; naked licensing Where the holder of a trademark exercised no control over the appearance and operations of a licensee’s business, the trademark is abandoned. “How much control is enough? The licensor’s self-interest largely determines the answer. Courts ...

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Over the past two years, patent attorneys have seen marked differences in the way patent applications are handled, and how a backlog of 700,000-plus filed patent applications are being tackled, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Tagged with: Intellectual Property patents U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Joshua M. Koch is a real Boy Scout. The civil litigator at Arndt, Buswell & Thorn in Sparta highlights his Eagle Scout award in his online firm biography. Koch also advertises his love of hunting and fishing, personal tidbits which often prove useful in connecting with clients, especially in northern Wisconsin.

Tagged with: Boyle Fredrickson David T. Prosser Foley & Lardner Intellectual Property Wisconsin Supreme Court