Law Office of Alicia Porter

Intellectual property can take all types of twists and turns. One of the most, ahem, colorful ones that was recently filed in Colorado was Infomedia v. Air-O-Matic in the United States District Court in Colorado, case number 09-CV-00302 that was filed on February 13, 2009.

The case centers around a feature created by Infomedia that can be added to the IPhone, whereby the user of the phone can download the Ifart feature, which is designed to discourage IPhone theft. In the complaint, Infomedia is seeking a declaratory judgment from the court on whether or not it infringes on the trademark or unfairly competes with the AOM “Pull My Finger” IPhone application.

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Law.com had a recent article about the Silvaco Data Systems versus Circuit Semantics Inc. (CSI) Silvaco has taken the extreme measure of suing Circuit Semantics semiconductor customers as well, over the issue of stolen trade secrets.

In short, Silvaco alleged that customers who purchased the CSI software product received the Silvaco company’s program’s source code, which was a trade secret, and that the CSI customers should have known about the purloined trade secrets when they purchased the product.

For the full link, please see http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202428300991

Okay, you’ve just gotten a trademark from the USPTO and you are happily using your mark in the stream of commerce to sell your product ( i.e  you are regularly selling your item with your trademark clearly labeled on your mark)

Regrettably, your competitor, who is only three towns over, and sells a product materially similar to yours  adopts a logo similar to your logo two years after you are granted your logo from the USPTO and three years after you started using your logo in the stream of commerce.   What are your options, and why should you care? After all, competition is healthy right, and, as  the business phrase goes “steel sharpens steel”, right?

Well there are some issues  to consider- is your trademark being diluted? Do your clients and potential clients get confused by the similarity of the logos and can’t determine which product is the one they prefer? Are you losing out on potential clients due to the logo confusion and product confusion?  The test boils down to whether or not a reasonable consumer would be confused by the similarity of the marks and the products.

If after thorough analysis, you determine that the mark would be infringed, what are your remedies?  Despite the bleakness of the situation, you do have options. You can ignore the competitor’s action ( and risk that your mark will become diluted, and your intellectual property rights will be limited as a result) send a carefully worded cease and desist letter,  license your logo to your client ( again, causing a dilution problem potentially, but also having the advantage of avoiding litigation) or file suit.

As my blog reflects both probate and estate planning issues, as well as copyright issues,  I thought I would tackle a question that that has recently been on a list serve.

Copyrights  give the author (assuming tha tthe author did not create a work for hire) protection for their work for the life in being + 70 years. Clearly, this is a significant amount of time. This is inheritable property.  An estate may well be receiving royalties for the use of the copyright long after the decedent has passed on. The most recent example of this is the Disturbia movie  lawsuit that was recently filed, where the estate of the author of the Alfred Hitchcock movie treatment sued for infringement on the copyright.

A trademark, by contrast, is a mark that is an identifier that indicates a particular good or product to a consumer. As such, the trademark passes with the business.