A Star Trek and Dr. Seuss mashup will Live Long and Prosper. %CUT% Comics legend, Ty Templeton, and Star Trek’s “Trouble with Tribbles Episode” writer, David Gerrold, collaborated on a comic called “Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go.” The comic mashed Dr. Seuss-like drawings and dialogue with Star Trek characters. The Dr. Seuss Estate sent Templeton and Gerrold a cease and desist letter citing trademark and copyright infringement. This resulted in Kickstarter shutting down the campaign to fund the development of the comic. Litigation ensued. Victory goes to Templeton and Gerrold. A California court ruled against Dr. Seuss on the trademark claim. The court held that Templeton and Gerrold’s use of the Dr. Seuss trademarks was ‘nominative fair use’. Although the court didn’t rule yet on the copyright claims, the court indicated that the use of Dr. Seuss’ copyrighted works was sufficiently transformative to be fair use.

My advertising injury may not be your advertising injury. %CUT% Many general business insurance policies cover defense of claims for ‘advertising injury.’ But what does that mean exactly? This comes up when the insured is sued for IP infringement and tenders the defense to the insurance company. Then the insurance company refuses to defend the claim because it doesn’t fit into the definition of advertising injury. In recent cases, the courts were able to give some guidance on how to analyze the duty to defend "advertising injury". Here are a few examples. In Diamond State Insurance v. 21 Century, the court held that defendant’s false and misleading statements in telephone calls to its competitor’s customers fell within the definition of advertising injury. In Sentry Insurance v. Provide Commerce Inc., the court held that the defendant’s use of Google search terms to redirect users to a competitor’s website could conceivably fall within the definition of advertising injury. In Mid-Continent Cas. Co. v. Kipp Flores Architects LLC, the court held that claims for copyright infringement stemming from an advertising idea were covered. In Sentinel Insurance Co. Ltd. v. ITD, the court held that claims of trade secret misappropriation do not fall within the definition of advertising injury.

Copyright only protects the non-standard elements of an architectural plan. %CUT% Architectural plans, by their nature, incorporate elements that have been in the public domain for centuries, such as doors, windows and types of rooms in a house. Copyright Law calls those standard elements “scènes à faire”. Home developers use a combination of standard elements to create floor plans. Sometimes, the developer comes up with a unique feature. When that happens, the developer has a copyright in the unique feature. The plaintiff in Design Basics LLC v. Lexington Homes, Inc., publishes home floor plans and licenses them on a retail basis. Design Basics sued Lexington Homes for copyright infringement of its floor plans. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in Lexington Homes’ favor. The Court agreed with the District Court that a jury could not find that Lexington Homes’ plans were substantially similar to Design Basics’ plans. The graphic to the left illustrates the point by juxta positioning a Design Basics floor plan with a Lexington Homes floor plan. If you take the scènes à faire out of the equation, Design Basics seems to have very little protectable elements. But there’s more. The Court, in dicta, discussed Design Basics' litigation history and used the opportunity to criticize Intellectual Property trolls. As of April 2017, Design Basics had brought over 100 copyright infringement lawsuits. Design Basics trawled the Internet and paid employees to find "infringers". The Court expressed distaste for this type of wholesale litigation. The Court reproached plaintiffs, i.e. Intellectual Property trolls, who misuse the legal system by filing dubious lawsuits for the purpose of prompting settlements to avoid costly litigation.

The USPTO’s audit procedure sets up a ‘use it or lose it’ proposition. %CUT% The owner of a registered trademark has to file a declaration of use between the 5th and 6th year after registration and then on every 10th anniversary of registration. The USPTO will conduct random audits of about 10% of the filed declarations of use. The USPTO’s audit system will maintain the integrity of the trademark registration system by insuring that a trademark is actually being used for the registered goods and services. If the trademark owner cannot provide sufficient specimens of use, the goods or services will be deleted from the trademark registration.