Call Now To Get Started (615) 734-1188 [email protected]
How Might I Own the Copyright? Let Me Count the Ways

How Might I Own the Copyright? Let Me Count the Ways

All the Ways in One Case You can't enforce what you don't own.1For a certain value of "own." That might seem fundamental to copyright law, but it's frequently overlooked because it seems so obvious. Not knowing who owns a copyright is like not knowing who...

read more
Oracle Fought Google. Transformativeness Won.

Oracle Fought Google. Transformativeness Won.

Oracle v. Google Is Over. And Rick Can Stop Blogging About It Forever. I was in the middle of writing a blog post about The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith—you know, the one about Andy Warhol's use of a photograph of Prince[ref]The...

read more
Some Fireworks on Our Way to Oracle v Google

Some Fireworks on Our Way to Oracle v Google

The Case That's More "Oracle v. Google" Than Oracle v. Google While we wait for the Supreme Court to hand down its decision in Oracle v. Google, we can have some fun with a case that might be exactly what folks are afraid Oracle v. Google is: use of copyright law to...

read more
Trademark Law Is Presumptuous Again

Trademark Law Is Presumptuous Again

Party Like it's 2006 I mentioned last time that the gigantic Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (remember that?) had three "IP"-related Easter eggs, two for trademark and one for copyright. I blogged about the copyright one last time, the "copyright small claims...

read more
Major changes coming to U.S. Trademark Law

Major changes coming to U.S. Trademark Law

On December 27, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 was signed into law. This massive 5660 page bill consolidated Covid-19 economic assistance to America with an omnibus 2021 bill that covers everything from pipelines to Asian carp. It also resolves a...

read more
Sixth Circuit Reminds Us to “Filter” Software

Sixth Circuit Reminds Us to “Filter” Software

Panning for Bad Code Software cases are few and far between here in the Sixth U.S. Circuit, which includes Tennessee along with Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. Other U.S. Circuits have hubs for software development—e.g, California and Washington in the Ninth, Texas in...

read more
Oracle v Google: An Opinionated Primer

Oracle v Google: An Opinionated Primer

The U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Oracle v. Google on October 7. It's supposed to be one of the most important copyright cases in decades. Not only will the Supreme Court visit computer programs for the first time since 1996's Lotus v. Borland, which...

read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
1 For a certain value of "own."