In Brief:  Copyright does not protect “useful articles” and design patents don’t always protect against infringement.

Sidewalk chalk has been around a long time. Lanard Toys Ltd. designed chalk holders that looked like No. 2 pencils. Lanard sold the chalk holders to distributors and toy store chains like Toys R Us.  Lanard sought and obtained both a registered copyright and a design patent.

Most people are familiar with Apple Inc. and its apple logo. Apple Inc. and its products are ubiquitous and pervasive. At any time, a person can be wearing one of their watches, talking on one of their phones and watching a video on one of their tablets.

PrePear is a new app that allows the user to save and organize recipes, create meal plans, shop efficiently for food and prepare healthy foods. PrePear adopted a pear logo, which makes sense considering the pun in the name. When PrePear sought to register its pear logo as a trademark, USPTO’s Examining Attorney didn’t see a likelihood of confusion between the pear logo and any other logo. The Examining Attorney cleared the application for publication.

Then, Apple filed an opposition.

Courts are now sorting out who is responsible when an impostor diverts a participant's retirement funds with fraudulent distribution requests.

Can the employer, as the plan sponsor, be held responsible when an outside service provider honors a suspicious distribution request?

One federal court recently dismissed such a case against the employer because the plan's website provider was alleged to have processed and authorized a fraudulent online distribution request without adequate participant confirmation. However, employers are plan fiduciaries with a duty to select and monitor the performance of plan service providers. This opens the door to potential claims against employers for their alleged failure to pick service providers with adequate cyber security practices - even if the employer's own data systems are secure and well maintained.

What should an employer do about this?

In Brief:  Always investigate when a new hire says they own proprietary information.