Let’s say I have a client who does landscaping. Their customer paid for part of the job by credit card and part of it in cash and was told to wait several weeks to see how things grow. A few days later, the customer emailed the landscaper: This is a terrible job. I’m disputing the credit…

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Recently a client of ours was approached by a company that buys and sells domain names. It was claiming to represent another company that wanted to buy our client’s domain name—but remain anonymous. I was intrigued and took to the internet to search through all of the new products coming out with names that were similar to our client’s…

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In a recent appeal, the issue of poundage came up. The appeal involved our client, who was the plaintiff in trial court, and an appellant, who had been the defendant — and whose sizeable bank account was frozen by a City Marshal after the court imposed a judgment favorable to our client. Early on in the process,…

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We all know that web pages often serve as retailers. With that in mind, an intellectual property attorney from Turkey asked me a great question at the INTA 2016 conference in Orlando: “Can showing products online be enough to show use of a trademark in the United States?” Fortunately, U.S. trademark guidelines for the U.S. Patent and Trademark…

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Recently, a copyright case years in the making has come back into the news. The heir to the composer of a song called “Taurus,” performed by a band called Spirit, had filed suit against a little-known band called Led Zeppelin over something called “Stairway to Heaven.” In March, a court in California denied Led Zeppelin’s…

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To best protect clients, we need to be sure the attorney-client relationship is clear, to avoid any potential problems that could arise during litigation. In most cases, where a client comes to you for advice about a specific matter and then retains you for a particular case, the rules governing attorney-client privilege can be quite straightforward.…

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Filing for copyright registration is extremely important for a number of reasons. Most people already know that they cannot sue for infringement until after registration. What they might not realize is that they are not entitled to statutory damages or attorney’s fees for any infringement that occurs prior to registration. This distinction should not be underestimated:…

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Recently, a client using a form agreement we had drafted told me that a Big, Important Customer had wanted to make changes to the agreement. It was “just boilerplate” – not financial – so the client made the changes without conferring with counsel. The Customer’s legal department said that they wanted the client, an entertainment service…

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A client of mine recently received an email from someone saying that since the 1990s, he had been using the same trademark she’s using now, so she should stop using it. The two trademarks were not exactly the same, but they were very similar, and for related goods and services. However, I wouldn’t recommend my client…

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Corporations are designed to protect the individuals who work there from personal liability. Naturally, it’s difficult to hold an individual owner of a corporation liable for the corporation’s acts. Even in cases where plaintiffs are able to obtain a judgment against a corporation, they’re often discouraged from trying to enforce it against the individuals who own…

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