Dorsey & Whitney LLP

The case demonstrates the considerable limitations of copyright as the basis for protection of works of applied art such as toys, props, fictional characters, costumes, merchandising goods, decorative art articles and many other examples of mass produced, functional or semi-functional designs, and the importance of registering designs and trademarks.

Beginning December 10, 2009, brand owners will be able to register .eu domain names in a number of non-Latin and special characters.

Several of the Justices also expressed concern that the Federal Circuit’s “machine or transformation” test for patent-eligibility is too restrictive and may inadvertently exclude future inventions.

A number of new privacy law compliance deadlines are fast approaching. Failure to comply with privacy laws could trigger U.S. regulator and State Attorney General action as well as monetary penalties. In some cases, there also could be private lawsuits.

The Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, David Kappos, has issued a new rule rescinding widespread rule changes proposed earlier by the Office restricting the number of continuation applications, requests for continued applications, and claims that a patent owner could pursue.

Even if you already have a Page, it is not too late to reduce your company’s legal risk in several areas.

In an effort to make it easier for people to find and connect with one another online, social networking provider Facebook, Inc., is offering its users the opportunity to create custom usernames to identify themselves in the URLs for their profile pages.

If you are a copyright owner, author or publisher, there’s a very good chance your rights may be affected by the proposed settlement agreement in the class action lawsuit against Google.

Who Must Comply?

Even the Vatican has weighed in.