Orange County – The number of patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2010 increased by 31 percent over the previous year. With 219,614 patents granted in 2010, it was the most substantial increase on record. It appears that our economic slump hasn’t affected the country’s innovators and inventors.
Not
San Diego – The cuddly kung fu-fighting bear which drew millions to the theatres to see “Kung Fu Panda” is now the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Jayme Gordon, a Massachusetts animation illustrator, filed a complaint in federal district court in Boston claiming that DreamWorks Animation stole his idea for the panda
Orange County – After months of mediation to resolve a dispute over the Groupon trademark and Groupon.com.au domain name, it appears that the Chicago-based online group-buying site will be forced to market itself to Australians as Stardeals.com.au. Groupon invites consumers to register on its website to receive daily emails from local businesses offering discounts
Los Angeles – Matt Drudge, owner of the Drudge Report, has reportedly reached an out-of-court settlement with Righthaven LLC. Righthaven is a copyright holding company founded in 2010, which acquires newspaper content and photos from its partner newspapers after learning that the content has been used without permission by online sites. Righthaven then sues
San Diego – Subway is being sued in federal trademark court in a dispute over the term “Footlong”. Apparently, the world’s largest sandwich chain hopes the courts will rule that “Footlong” is a noun that describes its signature sandwiches. Subway has filed a Footlong trademark application and is currently using it in a multi-million dollar
San Diego – Hasbro, the world’s second-largest toymaker, has succeeded in winning a trademark infringement action against a U.K. toy distributor MAPS Toys. Hasbro sued Maps as well as German company 123 Nahrmittel over its infringing use of the term “play dough” with its “Yummy Dough” product.
The suit, filed with the High
Orange County – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has just released the details on a new patent examination initiative that would speed up the examination process to one year for those willing to pay. Because of the large backlog, the process currently can take up to three years from the
Los Angeles – Former Coach Inc. employee Gina Kim knows the price of a real handbag. To earn extra money, Kim planned to auction several of her Coach handbags that she had purchased with her employee discount. Soon after Kim advertised the bags for sale on eBay, she received a cease and desist letter from
San Diego – If you are a Facebook user, and chances are pretty good that you are, you’ve likely been exposed to the social networking application called “Farmville.” Developed by Zynga Inc., Farmville now has over 14 million active daily users and 56 million active monthly users. The game’s popularity has been so overwhelming that
Orange County – Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey has filed suit over the patent rights to Square, a device that Time Magazine named as one of the Top 50 Inventions in 2010. Jim McKelvey, a glassblowing artist turned entrepreneur has joined Dorsey in the lawsuit against Robert Morley, an associate professor of electrical engineering
