Insights

Complaining about innovative distant learning programs in a COVID-19 era, some students and parents are revolting and seeking refunds of their tuition fees. Some are even suing their colleges. The suits claim that they paid for in-person education, and distance learning in this age of COVID-19 lockdown doesn’t cut it.  See “College Students Demand Refunds,” […]

The Supreme Court unanimously held this week that sovereign immunity insulates a state from suit for copyright infringement. Allen et al. v Cooper, Governor of North Carolina, et al., 589 U.S. ___(2020). The state in the Supreme Court case was North Carolina. In 2011 Lutzker & Lutzker fought a similar battle in federal district court […]

Copyright might seem unrelated to the pandemic, but the suddenly critical role of online education especially for young students raises important new issues and opportunities in that area. As schools are closing around the country, some perhaps for the rest of the year, our heroic teachers are scrambling to make sure that the education of […]

A Berkeley, California elementary school trying to raise funds for its PTA recently had an unpleasant surprise. After an evening showing of the movie The Lion King by the school’s Dads Club, for which there was an optional $15 entrance fee, the school received a letter from Movie Licensing USA, which represents Disney, accusing it […]

It takes more than just a trademark registration to establish and maintain a strong brand in today’s flooded consumer market. While federal trademark registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office is still the GOLD standard in brand protection, the following tips are additional ways to ensure your brand stands out: Consistency is Key […]

It’s ironic that fashion designer Carolina Herrera, who is Venezuelan and a self-declared emissary for Latin heritage, has found herself in the midst of a controversy over cultural appropriation.  The controversy arose out of the use by Herrera’s new creative director, Wes Gordon, of two designs associated with Mexican indigenous peoples on dresses in the […]

On March 26, 2019, the EU Parliament passed Article 17 (formerly Article 13) of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, entitled “Use of protected content by online content-sharing service providers” (EU Directive 2019/790, Art. 17), which will require large, online content-sharing service providers like YouTube and Facebook to actively screen and […]

The path to trademark registration for hemp and CBD-based products may be a little easier now. In response to the enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently issued Official Guidelines for the examination of marks for cannabis and cannabis-related goods and services. Brand owners […]

On March 4, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, settling a long-standing dispute over the Copyright Act’s registration requirement. Under the Copyright Act, a copyright owner generally may not institute a copyright infringement action until the work at issue has been registered in accordance with 17 U.S.C. § […]

For the first time in over 20 years, on January 1, 2019, US copyrighted works entered the public domain due to the expiration of their copyright term. Going forward, more works will now enter the public domain annually. The expiration of copyright for works published in 1923 means that everyone may use these materials, for […]