In Brief:  Reaching back into IP history, we find that “A Trap for Santa” was at the heart of an IP dispute in the early 1900s.

In Brief:   Parody is permitted but not always available for registration as a trademark.

In Brief:  An unrecorded trademark assignment is as good as no assignment at all.

In Brief:  A patent infringer is not liable for damages incurred before notice of plaintiff’s patent rights.

In Brief:   Copyright termination rights don’t apply to royalty assignments.

In Brief:  An author has a right to terminate a copyright transfer after a certain number of years.

In Brief:  Abandoned trademarks may have a life beyond abandonment.

In Brief:   A picture is worth a thousand words but using it may not pass the fair use test.

In Brief:  Holding a lot of patents that extend the life of an original patent isn’t’ a monopoly.

In Brief: Copyright in fireworks text messages is invalid.

In Brief:  Misappropriation of a trade secret requires more than just being in the supply chain.

In Brief:   A famous trademark doesn’t have to tolerate a trademark parody.

In Brief:  Competing eyelash booster trademarks don’t create a likelihood of confusion.

Fiduciaries who handle investments for self-directed 401(k) plans are increasingly exposed to liability for their investment decisions. Those fiduciaries, including employers and individuals charged with investment selection, are being second guessed in court actions for the investment funds they select.

Although the courts are divided, there are some guidelines that plan fiduciaries need to consider when reviewing their plan's mix of mutual funds offered for participant investment.

In Brief:   Web scraping publically available information isn’t computer fraud.

In Brief:  A court’s fix of an obvious error in patent claim language can’t be used as a defense to willful patent infringement.

In Brief: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor protects Pinterest from copyright infringement for photographs appearing next to ads.

In Brief:  “The” can be a trademark.

In Brief:  The first sale of a patent is determined by contract law.

In Brief:   A work that is created for commercial purposes is not protected by the Visual Artists’ Rights Act.

In Brief:  David’s beer brand wins over Goliath’s beer brand.

In Brief:   The type of trade secret drives reasonable measures of secrecy.

In Brief:  Oral agreements with independent contractors fuel copyright infringement litigation.

In Brief:  Adopting a portion of someone else’s trademark can lead to a likelihood of confusion.

In Brief: Too many words in a contract term plus course of dealing can cause a bad breakup.