View Recent Blog Posts in Intellectual Property

  • By: Mary Love and Devin Ricci This blog is an update to "Legal Issues with Using AI to Create Content – Written with Help from AI" by Devin Ricci on April 28, 2023 On August 18th, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued an opinion stating that Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated artwork lacks "human authorship," thus it cannot... Continue Reading...
  • By: Devin Ricci On June 8, 2023, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Jack Daniel's in the case of Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 599 U.S. ___ (2023). The case arose from Jack Daniel's complaint about VIP's sale of a dog toy designed to resemble a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey. As... Continue Reading...
  • By: Jessica Engler When award-winning photographer Lynn Goldsmith snapped a portrait of the artist formerly known as Prince for Newsweek in 1981, she could not have predicted the cultural and legal impact the pop legend's portrait would have. In 1984, Vanity Fair sought to license the photograph for an "artist reference" in a story about the musician. Goldsmith... Continue Reading...
  • By: Devin Ricci Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives. One area where AI has already made significant inroads is in content creation. With the help of AI-powered writing assistants, businesses and individuals can generate high-quality content with minimal effort. However, there are legal concerns associated... Continue Reading...
  • By: Jessica Engler and Mary Love On June 15, 2022, Governor John Bel Edwards signed into law Act No. 425, S.B. 426, named the "Allen Toussaint Legacy Act."[1] The Act is named after the late Allen Toussaint, a famous New Orleans musician, songwriter, and producer. Toussaint was known for hits such as "Java," "Fortune Teller," "Southern Nights," "Working in the Coal... Continue Reading...
  • By: Devin Ricci and Randy Cangelosi In the United States, name, image, and likeness ("NIL") are the three elements that make up a legal concept known as the right of publicity. The right of publicity is an intellectual property right that protects against the misappropriation of a person's name, likeness, or other forms of personal identity—such as nickname, pseudonym, voice, signature,... Continue Reading...
  • By: Kean Miller Effective today, July 1, the NCAA has officially suspended the organization's rules prohibiting athletes from selling the rights to their names, images, and likenesses ("NIL"). Despite the NCAA's longstanding principles that payments to athletes while attending college would undermine amateurism of college athletics, the organization's Division I board of directors decided Wednesday that it would... Continue Reading...
  • By: Lauren Rucinski In United States Patent & Trademark Office v. Booking.com B. V.,[1] SCOTUS held that a mark styled as "generic.com" is eligible for federal trademark registration if the applicant shows "generic.com" is not a generic name to consumers. Although the Court did not expressly say so, this decision chips away at the rule that generic terms... Continue Reading...
  • By: Devin Ricci and Eric Lockridge Intellectual property comprises some of the most valuable assets a business may hold – its brands, patents, know-how, and other intangible rights that make the business unique. The intellectual property assets (IP) throughout the energy sector—upstream, midstream, downstream and service providers along the way—will be affected as more energy companies seek bankruptcy relief in the... Continue Reading...
  • By: Devin Ricci Companies that rely upon trade secret information must remain diligent with their rights at all time – one inadvertent disclosure could, in theory, kill trade secret protection. As such, companies will need to adapt and revamp their security measures to account for the mass adoption of teleworking in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Uniform... Continue Reading...