US Law Archives - Page 54 of 71

New Chief of Patent Office Takes Aim at a Massive Backlog

Wall St. Journal: “The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s new chief has kicked off an effort to overhaul the patent-application process, seeking to fix the backlogged and financially strapped agency and help the Obama administration earn some good will with the business community. On Thursday, Director David Kappos scrapped controversial rules that would have limited the number of patent claims companies could file and the information they could submit to back up claims. The rules were proposed during the Bush administration in a bid to accelerate the patent process, but many in the business community believed the opposite would result.”

Save Us From the Swag-Takers

Wall St. Journal: “The Federal Trade Commission, eager to protect us from shoddy media practices, issued new regulations this week requiring full disclosure from a variety of sneaky characters. Celebrities are on notice that if they sing the praises of product X while on Oprah’s couch, they had better mention how much the makers of product X are paying them, even if that payment is nothing more than a free sample in a goodie bag. The famous are not the FTC’s only target. The agency declared that “a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.” Sounds reasonable enough, until it becomes clear just how expansive the FTC’s concept of an “in-kind payment” is. The blogger who gets a free review copy of a book and writes up his opinion of it is now being labeled by the government a commercial endorser of the book—even if he pans it. This is not how traditional media are treated, which is what makes the new rules so significant: The government has weighed in on the contentious topic of whether bloggers are journalists—and delivered a resounding No.”

The FTC’s Mad Power Grab: Preposterous New Endorsement Guidelines

Slate.com: “If you’re a blogger and you write about goods or services—and what blogger doesn’t write about books, movies, music, theater, restaurants, home theaters, laptops, manicures, clothing, tutoring, bicycles, cars, boats, cameras, strollers, watches, lawn care, pharmaceuticals, gourmet food, maid service, hair care, concerts, banking, shipping, or septic tank service from time to time?—then you’ve just made yourself vulnerable to an investigation from the Federal Trade Commission.”

See also “Our lips are sealed” by Megan McArdle. “A reader asks me to blog about the FTC decision on blogger disclosure. The problem is, it’s so transparently stupid that I don’t even know what to say.”

Overlawyered.com says “some blogs have mistakenly reported the applicable fines as ranging up to $11,000, which is an obsolete number and should in fact be $16,000.”

whocanisue.com Comes Under Fire in Florida

Wall St. Journal: “The latest debate in the Sunshine State concerns whocanisue.com, a Boca Raton-based online referral service that has offended some in the Florida bar, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. . . Critics, such as the vice chair of the Florida Bar advertising-ethics committee, say whocanisue degrades the legal profession and often steers the public to lawyers who simply churn cases en masse in order to quickly settle them.”

Domain Names: Federal Court or UDRP Arbitration?

Attorney David Johnson, author of the Digital Media Lawyer Blog, wrote an interesting article on a trademark holder’s choice of forum when seeking to obtain a domain name from a cybersquatter. The action may be a lawsuit in federal court or an arbitration under ICANN’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure. The article is titled “Federal Court or UDRP Arbitration? How the Forum that Decides a Domain Name Dispute Can Make a Big Difference in the Results.”

Combatants in cybersquatting or domain name disputes are often not aware of the great degree to which the result they get depends on the judicial body that makes the decision. A clear illustration of how forum choice affects results can be seen in the widely varying deference given by the different judicial bodies to a defendant’s assertion of a “laches” defense to a cybersquatting complaint.