Copyright

By Diana Chan | amdlawgroup.com Have you completed a manuscript for a reality tv show? In addition to federal copyright protection, Secure Script Registration with the Writer’s Guild of America can help writers protect their manuscripts associated with radio, film, and TV. Through the Writer’s Guild of America, authors protect their works by establishing legal evidence of the completion date of their original work and their prior claim to authorship--useful aspects against infringers.

Tasha Schmidt, Staff Writer, AMD Law Muti Time Machine Inc, v. Amazon.com deals with the question of whether Amazon’s search results violate trademark law. Multi Time Machine  sued Amazon for copyright infringement. For those of us who are familiar with Amazon, we have probably found ourselves searching for something on Amazon, adding it to our shopping bag, and then proceeding to find another ten items we would also like to buy. There is no doubt that Amazon benefits customers in th

By Aurelia Mitchell Durant, Esquire | www.amdlawgroup.com Your trademark, like your name, is your identity, because, as a solopreneur, your business is yours and yours alone. And unlike your personal name, which you most probably did not choose, you worked and thought long and hard before you decided on your business trademark. You should have chosen a name that is unique, and that cannot be confused with the trademark of any other business, whether in a field similar to yours or those that hav

By Sindy Wenjin Ding | amdlawgroup.com The Fashion Law Institute’s 4th Annual Symposium entitled “The spectrum of Style” was held in Fordham Law School in New York on Apr 4. I attended the symposium as a Fashion Law practitioner at AMD LAW, as well as a Fordham Law alumna. The Symposium owns high regards in fashion law industry nationwide, and as expected, it attracted many serious fashion law experts, partners in notable firms, executives from various departments and companies, fashi

By  Aurelia Mitchell Durant, Esquire | amdlawgroup.com Trademark protection has many benefits for business owners. Although it is technically true that you acquire some trademark protection in the United States simply by using the mark it is best to register the trademark.  By registering your trademark on the Principal Register you are enhancing the rights you already acquired when you started using the trademark.  Here are some of the significant benefits:   Nationwide Priority Witho

Imagine a publishing firm based in the United States called “PJD Publishing” (a fictitious company). At PJD, they specialize in novels of fictions, and children’s books. To protect the creative ingenuity of their authors, PJD has copyrighted all of their works. However, copyright laws in foreign countries work differently than those in the United States. For example, in Canada, the dissemination of digital files is legal as long as the distributor is not making a profit. In the United Stat

By Tasha Schmidt | amdlawgroup.com Many people feel like Washington needs to give more attention and priority to intellectual property rights. Especially this time of the year as the Academy Awards has just happened, it seems like a good time of the year to recognize the billion of dollars that Hollywood funnels into the U.S. economy annually. It seems like everyone wants to be a part of the American movie business, however, many of those that want to get involved are not keen on making sure

By Aurelia Mitchell Durant, Esquire and Sindy Ding-Voorhees, Esquire Bravo to all the small business owners that have the bravery, vision and drive to create something incredible and novel in the marketplace. Every business starts out from an idea. No matter where you are in the stage of solidifying your business idea or executing your business plan, intellectual property is a substantial part of the plan and you want to timely and correctly protect this valuable asset, especially as you try

By Eliana Rocchi | amdlawgroup.com Edited by Aurelia Mitchell Durant When you seek a patent for your invention you should know that the “classic” type of patent, called a “utility patent”, is aimed to protect the invention's functional and structural features. If you also want to protect your invention’s visual characteristics, like its shape or its decoration, you might need a design patent. In fact, the appearance of your invention will not be covered by a utility patent if

Twitter has made a significant change in its copyright policy, deciding to “withhold” tweets that receive a copyright complaint. The original tweet will be replaced with a message that reads, “This Tweet from @Username has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder.” The message also includes a link to Twitter’s “Copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy” page.  Twitter used to completely delete tweets without explanation, but now users can resp

  You might think that you are just using an innocent nickname but on the other hand maybe you are not.  Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel teamed up with JMAN2 Enterprises LLC in December during football season to trademark, “Johnny Football.” However, neither the company nor Manziel cannot proceed to make money until he is out of the NCAA. A man named Eric Vaughn has allegedly been selling t-shirts that say, “Keep Calm and Johnny Football,” which clearly utilizes the name, �

By Gabrielle Sherwood| Editor: Tikwiza Nkowane| www.amdlawgroup.com A three-judge panel on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) granted Coca-Cola rights to trademark the term "Zero" for its soft drink products. This decision was a major victory for the company. Since 2003, Coca-Cola has been trying to win exclusive rights to the no-calorie beverage brand name-and they finally have. There were many valid arguments against granting rights to trademark the

Digital Rights Management has been an issue of debate for publishers trying to fight piracy ever since the dawn of the digital age. Digital Rights Management is anti-piracy technology that digital copyright owners use to control who gets to access or copy their work. In particular, DRM gives some content holders the power to remotely control how people can install, listen to, view, and duplicate digital files. An example of how this technology has been misused was when Amazon remotely accessed t

By Toshia Smith | Editor: Kristen Daly | www.amdlawgroup.com On the campaign trail, it is commonplace to hear popular music as a politician walks on stage to give a speech. It serves as a way for those in positions of power to connect with everyday people and their love of the same song. One notion that is also commonplace is musicians asking politicians to stop using their music for promotional purposes. In this 2016 presidential race, GOP nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly been asked by th

By Eliana Rocchi | amdlawgroup.com The expression “Public domain” is generally used with reference to the works that belong to everyone and are available for public use. The concept comes from copyright law. It identifies those creative works that are not protected by copyright and thus may be used freely by the public. In other words anyone can copy them or modify them or generally use them in any way they wish. But when does that happen? Nowadays, copyrights in a work are acquired au