While the Oscars aren’t technically a legal holiday, the spirit of the season does seem to fit in with my series on Holiday Trademarks. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences owns several Oscar-related trademarks, including: A design trademark for the image of the little gold man himself. OSCAR. OSCARS. ACADEMY AWARDS. OSCAR NIGHT. A.M.P.A.S. SUNDAY AT THE OSCARS. What about the names of the movies themselves? As if you didn’t already have it memorized, the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure, 8th Edition, Section 1202.08 (stay with me here) states, in part: “The title, or a portion of a…
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Archives: Entertainment Law
LINSANITY™
February 21, 2012
By now, everyone and their tiger mom has heard of Jeremy Lin, the Harvard-educated basketball sensation. My understanding is that the new version of the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will include Linsanity as a medically-treatable condition. Before we all run out and get vaccinated, let’s consider the trademark issues. I promise to do my very best to avoid all of the various “Lin” puns.
Everything is a Remix
February 17, 2012
The fourth and final part of Kirby Ferguson’s outstanding video series Everything is a Remix was posted yesterday. Click here to watch the whole Everything is a Remix series. Click here for Part 4 of Everything is a Remix, which focuses on the history of copyright and patents and some current issues in these areas of law. Trust me – these videos are fascinating and are certainly much more entertaining than my descriptions make them out to be.
Banana Battle: Velvet Underground & Warhol’s Common Law Trademark Dispute
February 1, 2012
The Velvet Underground, a seminal underground rock band from the 1960s, recently filed a trademark and unfair competition lawsuit (link opens to a PDF) against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Andy Warhol Foundation has been licensing an image, which Andy Warhol drew in 1966, for use on various products – the same banana image that was on the cover of the Velvet Underground’s first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. The complaint by the band demands damages for trademark infringement and unfair competition and a declaratory judgment that states the Warhol Foundation does not have a…
