“Shaky Ground” – Legal Residence Requirements and the New USPTO Rules

Following up on the earlier article about the new trademark registration requirements related to US residency, I’m quoted at length in this article on World Trademark Review.

I hope my remarks don’t downplay the possibility of problems. In particular I hope it’s clear that I believe that individual applicants could experience improper actions during examination including inappropriate inquiry into immigration status and the publication of information which should not be (and has no legal basis to be) made public. As the other attorneys point out, we need to make sure people are safe. That’s priority one.

All I meant by my comment on statistics is that it will become clear if there is a systemic issue in reasonably short order, which would mean the guidelines themselves are a problem, as opposed to individual application by Examining Attorneys. Anyway, here’s the article:

worldtrademarkreview.com/brand-management/shaky-legal-ground-unintended-consequences-uspto-requests-proof-legal

“Own The Rights:” Say What Now?

“We need to own the rights.”

That phrase gets thrown around a LOT in the creative industries. And it gets misused quite a bit of the time. What does it mean to “own” rights? What is it worth? Why is it necessary?

A personal story:

I used to be a photographer. I was pretty good, too. One day a friend of mine tells me his daughter’s boyfriend is managing a model, and she needs some portfolio pics, and could I do it? I said, “Sure.” So I go and take some pictures and everybody’s happy. Then Daughter’s Boyfriend calls me and says, “Hey, I manage a new band, they needs some album and promo pics, can you help me out?

I said, “Sure. What are you looking for, and what are you looking to spend?”

He says, “Well, I figured I’d pay you $200.00 and you’d just give me the film.”

Not pointing out that I shoot digital, I politely respond, “Yes, but what rights do you need?”

“Well I figured we’d own the pics and just pay you for your time.”

Fortunately, I know my friend doesn’t actually like Daughter’s Boyfriend, so I don’t have to be nice to him

Continue reading “Own The Rights:” Say What Now?

New Rule on Foreign Applicants for US Trademark Registrations (Article)

I am quoted at length in this World Trademark News article on the new rule that foreign applicants for US trademark registrations must be represented by a US attorney starting on August 3. I’d go into more detail but the article hits all the important points, so please do check it out!

https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/brand-management/never-seen-anything-uspto-experiences-massive-surge-trademark-applications

An Inexpensive Secure Device – the FreePi (Raspberry Pi FreedomBox)

Hello friends!

Sorry it’s been quiet on the ol’ blog, but if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll get plenty of commentary on the legal news of the day. (I’m @legalinspire on Twitter. See right column.)

Today, though, we’re going to take a little detour, though our destination is very relevant to intellectual property law, information security, and a few other topics near and dear to my heart. Specifically, we’re going to look at one of the purest Open Source devices available for non-I’ll-just-build-my-OWN-damn-OS programmer types: the FreedomBox. Even more specifically, I’m going to show you how to build the cheapest sort of FreedomBox you can build from scratch. (First there’s going to be some background, so if you just want to skip to the building part, click here. Warning: this is very long and there are a lot of pictures.)

Continue reading An Inexpensive Secure Device – the FreePi (Raspberry Pi FreedomBox)

Who Owns What? Presentation on Copyright Ownership at MCSC!

I was invited by the McHenry County Software Craftsmanship group to speak about copyright ownership, since questions of authorship, work-for-hire, and related topics are of interest to many programmers. I spoke for 45 minutes, asked for questions… and spoke for another 45 minutes! They were very gracious hosts and the members had wonderful questions. Very much enjoyed it.

A link to the group – and the event – is here:
https://www.meetup.com/Software-Craftsmanship-McHenry-County/events/fvvtxnyzgbvb/ .

The presentation materials, as promised, can be downloaded from this link on the off chance anybody wants them: