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Upstart Locast Shakes Up the Local Television Broadcast Market

A tiny non-profit is making big waves in the vast ocean of television broadcasting. Locast.org now offers a handful of local broadcast television stations online and appears to have found a legal loophole that has prevented similar companies from streaming local broadcast television stations in the past.

Locast.org is what is known as a “digital translator.” Traditional broadcast translator services are low-powered television stations that rebroadcast the signal of full-power station to areas that the full-power station signals cannot reach. For instance if someone in Adair, Iowa was too far away to receive a local television broadcast signal from Des Moines, Iowa, a broadcast translator service could set up a rebroadcast antenna between the two cities, which would allow viewers from Adair to watch Des Moines local television broadcasts. Locast.org acts like these traditional broadcast translator services, except that instead of rebroadcasting a local broadcaster’s signal over-the-air, Locast.org rebroadcasts the signal over the Internet. To keep the reach of the rebroadcast local, Locast.org users must sign up online, provide a name and email address, certify the city they live in and are logging on from, and then select their city online. Currently, Locast.org is only available in a handful of markets, but intends to expand in the future.

So why has no one done this in the past? They have. It is just that they have all been shut down. To understand where other have failed and Locast.org appears to be succeeding requires a look at the law governing rebroadcast of local television signals. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires that local television stations consent to give cable systems or other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) to rebroadcast the local television stations’ signals. Cable companies, satellite providers, and other MVPDs negotiate with local television stations for this consent to rebroadcast, typically in exchange for cash or other consideration.

Failure of the cable provider and the local television station to come to an agreement can result in the cable company subscribers no longer being able to access their local television station. Combine this with people who do not have cable or satellite and still wish to receive their local television stations and you can see why the market for an alternative access to local television stations exists. Other companies have tried to do what Locast.org is doing. One such company was Aereo. When Aereo entered the market to provide users with internet access to local television stations a consortium of major broadcasters, including NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox, sued Aereo. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Aereo did indeed infringe the exclusive right of the owners of the copyright in the network broadcasts by selling Aereo’s subscribers a technologically complex service that allows them to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time as the programs are broadcast over the air.

So what allows Locast.org to thrive, where competitors like Aereo have failed? The secret lies in one small section of the united States Code. Under 17 U.S.C. § 111, “The secondary transmission of a performance or display of a work embodied in a primary transmission is not an infringement of copyright if [….] the secondary transmission [….] is made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage, and without charge to the recipients of the secondary transmission other than assessments necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service.” According to 17 U.S.C. § 111, it appears that as long as Locast.org remains a nonprofit, it maintains the right to rebroadcast local television station signals to consumers in those markets.

So network broadcasters are left with a conundrum. Should they sue Locast.org at all? The upside of a successful lawsuit would mean the continuation of huge revenues across the country from cable companies paying to rebroadcast their signals. The downside of an unsuccessful lawsuit would likely mean a significant decrease in those revenues, as cable companies no longer felt compelled to deliver a product their customers can get for free online. From the network broadcasters’ vantage, Locast.org does not appear to have the resources to fight a lengthy copyright battle in federal court. However, the language of 17 U.S.C. § 111 appears clear, so clear, that a court might grant Locast.org summary judgment on the issue, meaning Locast.org could likely avoid the majority of the legal fees involved in these types of fights. Additionally, if a court were to grant Locast.org summary judgment, it is likely that donations to Locast.org would skyrocket overnight, leading to a rapid boost in its expansion plans.

Even more interesting, is what this upstart company might mean for cable and satellite providers. Video consumers have shown a strong affinity for à la carte picking and choosing among only those providers they want to watch i.e.(HBO, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc.). Consumers do not want to pay a portion of the huge fees associated with channels like ESPN if they do not watch sports. If providers like Locast.org finally allow consumers to receive local stations without having to purchase predetermined packages from cable and satellite providers, and instead select only those channels they wish to receive, the market for cable and satellite providers may quickly plummet. At the present, network broadcasters, cable and satellite providers, and consumers all appear to be waiting to see how things progress with Locast.org before taking action. No one knows for sure how Locast.org’s risky gambit will pay off, but rest assured, it will be interesting.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Copyright Law, General, Internet Law.

Board Game Patents – Magic: The Gathering

On August 5, 1993, mathematics Professor Richard Garfield released a set of 240 playing cards that would change the gaming landscape forever. But the story of Magic: The Gathering (“MTG” for short), starts much earlier. Garfield had been creating games since at least as early as 1982, when he came up with a card game called Five Magics. While Five Magics went on to inspire Garfield’s friends to develop additional magic-based card games, within a few years, Garfield had moved on.

In 1991, Garfield was working toward a Ph.D in one of my favorite areas of mathematics, combinatorics. By that time, Garfield had also teamed up with Mike Davis to create the popular board game RoboRally. Davis eventually pitched the game to Peter Adkison and James Hays of American game publisher Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”). Adkison and Hays loved RoboRally, but explained to Garfield and Davis that WotC was not in a position to release a board game at that time. Disappointed, Garfield responded, asking Hays what WotC was in a position to publish. Hays told Garfield that WotC was looking for a portable card game that people could take out and play during downtimes at conventions. The rest is history.

Returning home, Garfield dusted off Five Magics, began adding to the good things, and chiseling away at the bad. Garfield focused on combining the collectability of baseball cards and the chaotic asymmetrical energy of the iconic board game Cosmic Encounter with the beloved fantasy elements of Dungeons & Dragons. After multiple failed attempts, Garfield eventually landed on a game he simply called “Magic.” To deter people from buying hundreds of cards and only using the most powerful cards in his game, Garfield included an “ante” mechanism. The ante worked much like a claiming race in auto sports or horse racing. At the beginning of the game, both players would randomly select one card from their decks and place them aside. The winner of the game would then own the two ante cards. The ante system placed a financial disincentive on using only rare and expensive cards to compete against a deck of more common cards.

The first MTG core set that WotC released in August of 1993 was called Limited Edition: Alpha (nicknamed “Alpha”). Alpha’s first print run was a modest 2.6 million cards. WotC sold Alpha in 60 card starter decks and 15 card boosters. MTG turned out to be more successful than either Garfield or WotC could ever have imagined. Having just celebrated its 25th anniversary, MTG has become one of the biggest selling games of all time, today boasting over 20 million players and over 20 billion cards sold. Since its inception, MTG has been translated into over ten languages and has become the world’s “Most Played Trading Card Game.”

As shown below, the now-expired MTG patent originally covered a game mechanic whereby players would make some type of designation that certain cards were being brought into play. The “tapping” mechanic could involve simply rotating the cards sideways.

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 5,662,332

1. A method of playing games involving two or more players, the method being suitable for games having rules for game play that include instructions on drawing, playing, and discarding game components, and a reservoir of multiple copies of a plurality of game components, the method comprising the steps of:
each player constructing their own library of a predetermined number of game components by examining and selecting game components from the reservoir of game components;
each player obtaining an initial hand of a predetermined number of game components by shuffling the library of game components and drawing at random game components from the player’s library of game components; and
each player executing turns in sequence with other players by drawing, playing, and discarding game components in accordance with the rules until the game ends, said step of executing a turn comprises:
(a) making one or more game components from the player’s hand of game components available for play by taking the one or more game components from the player’s hand and placing the one or more game components on a playing surface; and
(b) bringing into play one or more of the available game components by:
(i) selecting one or more game components; and
(ii) designating the one or more game components being brought into play by rotating the one or more game components from an original orientation to a second orientation.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Board Games, Patent Law.

Board Game Patents – Tsuro

The Patent

Tsuro, the tile-laying board game was not released until 2004, but the underlying game has been around much longer than that. The original game was called “Squiggle” and was the subject of United States Patent Number 4,180,271 (the ‘271 Patent), filed July 10, 1978. As disclosed in the ‘271 Patent by inventor Thomas McMurchie, other than using a “Next” tile instead of the familiar “Dragon” tile, the concept and rules for Squiggle are not much different than present day Tsuro.

The Alternative Version

It is interesting to note that in the ‘271 Patent McMurchie envisioned an alternative embodiment of the game, where instead of having two endpoints on each side of the tiles, the eight connection points on the tiles were on the four corners and four sides of the tiles.

From Squiggle to Tsuro

Although Squiggle was patented in 1979, it was not until 2001, when McMurchie played a game of Squiggle with WizKids founder Jordan Weisman, that the idea for rebranding Squiggle as Tsuro came to fruition. WizKids published the game from 2004 until 2009, when Weisman et al. launched Calliope games with Tsuro as one of its supporting titles. Since then, Calliope Games has launched various reimplementations of Tsuro, including Tsuro of the Seas, and Tsuro: Phoenix Rising.

Tsuro Meets Star Wars

Another interesting fact about Tsuro is that in 2011, prior to the release of the follow-up hit Tsuro of the Seas, French game publisher Abbysse Corp. published a few copies of a game called Star Wars Asteroid Escape. Adding to the rarity Star Wars Asteroid Escape is the fact that Abbysse only released the game in France. It is rumored in some discussion groups that shortly after Disney announced its multi-billion dollar deal to acquire Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise in 2012, Disney ordered all remaining copies of Star Wars Asteroid Escape destroyed. Star Wars Asteroid Escape is played much like the 2012 board game Tsuro of the Seas, with the asteroid tiles of Asteroid Escape, being replaced by the better-known daikaiju tiles of Tsuro of the Seas.

Feel free to leave any other interesting facts about Tsuro in the comments below.

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 4,180,271 reads as follows:

1. A game comprising:
a game board having a quadrangular playing area that is divided into a plurality of equal sized quadrangles and having a border between the outer edges of the game board and said quadrangular playing area;
a plurality of start marks located on said border adjacent each one of the outer ones of said plurality of equal sized quadrangles;
a plurality of playing cards, each one of said plurality of playing cards being of equal size and shape to the size and shape of each one of said plurality of equal sized quadrangles and having a plurality of line segments imprinted on one surface thereof, each one of said line segments having both of its ends terminate at an edge of the said playing card on which that line segment is imprinted; and
a plurality of individually distinguishable playing pieces.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Board Games, Patent Law.

McDonald’s Loses Its “Big Mac” Trademark Across Europe

On January 11, 2019, in a landmark ruling, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) revoked McDonald’s International Property Company, Ltd., (McDonald’s) European Union trademark registration No 62 638 for the trademark “BIG MAC.” Citing as the reason for the revocation, the EUIPO pointed to McDonald’s failure to prove that it had used the “BIG MAC” trademark in the European Union for a continuous period of five years.

Trademark rights are not like patent rights or copyrights. Patent and copyright owners can obtain those rights without ever selling a single item, and maintain those rights even if the owners never put those rights to use. Conversely, to obtain and maintain trademark rights, the trademark owner must actually use the trademark in association with the sale of goods or services. Failure to continuously use a trademark will result in those trademark rights being lost.

So what happened in this case? McDonald’s did register a European Union trademark (EUTM) (formerly Community Trade Mark (CTM)) for the “BIG MAC” trademark on December 12, 1998. Thereafter, an Irish company, Supermac’s (Holdings) Ltd, (Supermacs) began using the “SUPERMACS” trademark in association with its restaurants. McDonalds then took issue with this use, arguing that the use of “SUPERMACS” in association with restaurants infringed its “BIG MAC” trademark. Supermacs fought McDonald’s over the use and eventually prevailed. Thereafter, Supermacs went a step further and applied to have McDonald’s “BIG MAC” trademark revoked. Supermacs filed the revocation request on April 11, 2017.

In response to the trademark revocation application, McDonald’s provided affidavits, brochures, website printouts, and a even a printout from Wikipedia. While the EUIPO gave some weight to this evidence, the EUIPO concluded that “[t]aking into account the submitted evidence as a whole, it is concluded that the documents do not provide conclusive information that the products marked with the EUTM are offered for actual sale, as there is no confirmation of any commercial transactions, either online, or via brick-and-mortar operations.”

In defending its revocation, the EUIPO pointed to McDonald’s failure to provide sufficient evidence of continuous use of the “BIG MAC” trademark. “The methods and means of proving genuine use of a mark are unlimited. The finding that genuine use has not been proven in the present case is due not to an excessively high standard of proof, but to the fact that [McDonald’s] chose to restrict the evidence submitted.”

McDonald’s has two months from the date of the revocation to file an appeal.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Trademark Law.

1 Million Cups Des Moines – Thaddeus Medical Systems

Come join like-minded Des Moines, Iowa area entrepreneurs at the 1 Million Cups events tomorrow. January 16, 2019. at 8a.m. at the Science Center of Iowa (which also graciously provides a ticket for free parking in the Science Center Parking Ramp during the event).

Share some free coffee with local startup community members and then take part in a presentation by Thaddeus Medical Systems as they detail their road to creating their smart packaging technology solution for storing and transporting temperature sensitive therapeutics and specimens. After the talk feel free to ask questions and share insight about the company’s journey from idea to realization.

I’ll be there, so be sure to say “Hi” and introduce yourself if you plan to stop by.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Des Moines, Iowa Law.

Jury Verdict Stripping Mongols Motorcycle Club of Its Trademarks Raises More Questions Than It Answers

Background

The Mongols Nation Motorcycle Club is an outlaw biker club formed in Montebello, California in 1969. The Club is estimated to have up to 1,500 “full patched” members in fourteen states and ten countries, including former member and former Minnesota governor Jesse Venturea. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) has infiltrated the club multiple times, resulting in many arrests and convictions of various club members for various crimes.

In addition to trying to imprison its members, the BATF and Department of Justice (DOJ) have engaged in lengthy legal battles to strip the Club of its trademark rights in the “Mongols Nation” name and logo. Since 2008 prosecutors have tried over and over again, in various courts, to obtain forfeiture of the trademarks. The trademarks at issue include the words “Mongols Nation” and the logo at the right showing a Genghis Khan-type caricature riding a cruiser.

The Club originally registered the “Mongols Nation” service mark in 2005 and filed a federal trademark on the collective membership logo in 2013. The registration was cancelled in 2012 and the application abandoned in 2014. New registrations covering the service mark and the collective membership logo were filed and registrations obtained in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Courts have attempted to strip the Club of its trademark rights in the past. In 2008, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, of Federal District Court in Los Angeles, granted an injunction prohibiting gang members and their associates from wearing the logo and authorizing law enforcement seizure of “products, clothing, vehicles, motorcycles, books, posters, merchandise, stationery, or other materials bearing the Mongols trademark.” In 2009, a Mongols Nation member, Ramon Rivera, along with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit, demanding law enforcement not be allowed to confiscate his property. Mr. Rivera eventually prevailed, the judge’s ruling was overturned, and the court awarded Mr. Rivera $252,466 in lawyers’ fees.


The Verdict

Since 2009, the rights in the trademarks have been transferred multiple times, avoiding confiscation when it appeared whomever the then-current owner was might run into a situation requiring forfeiture of the trademark rights. On December 14, 2018 a federal Santa Ana jury found the Club guilty of the charges of conspiracy and racketeering. On January 11, 2019, that same jury that found the Mongols Nation Motorcycle Club guilty of conspiracy and racketeering charges, handing down a verdict that the Mongol Nation has to forfeit its trademark rights to the federal government. Unfortunately, neither the redacted jury notes, nor the redacted verdict form provide much insight as to the basis of the jury’s verdict.

The Aftermath

Just what the jury’s decision means for the future of the trademark rights in “Mongols Nation” and the Genghis Khan logo remains unclear. Even prosecutors are surprisingly mum about what might happen next. It was the intention of some members of law enforcement that the ruling would allow them to stop anyone wearing the trademarks and confiscate all items bearing the trademarks. This does not appear to be what is going to happen, especially since some members of the Club have the trademarks tattooed on their bodies. Confiscation, especially in those cases, could prove difficult.

To anyone with a background in trademark law, this verdict should raise a lot of questions. Most importantly, what statute or common law allows a jury to take trademark rights away from an entity and give them to the federal government? Also, does this verdict force the federal government to start using the trademarks to prevent their abandonment? This verdict seems to be the first of its kind where a jury tried to permanently deprive one particular entity from ever obtaining trademark rights in a name or logo. While the verdict may be well-intentioned, it does not appear to be supported by existing law.

The main problem with the verdict is that trademark rights are not like most other property rights. Unlike other property rights, trademark rights do not exist in the abstract. One cannot simply acquire trademark rights, lock them away in a box for twenty years, and then sell them. Trademark rights are harder to maintain than even other intellectual property rights. Unlike patents and copyrights, trademark rights exist only in association with a good or service being offered for sale in commerce, or to identify members in an organization. If a trademarks, such as those owned by the Mongols Nation, are forfeited to the federal government, and the federal government has no intention of offering any goods or service under the trademarks, and intends that the trademarks specifically not be used to identify members of an organization, those trademark rights will go abandoned.

Once the trademark rights go abandoned (ignoring for the moment that the logo might still be protected by copyright) anyone can use them. For these particular trademarks however, it seems unlikely that anyone would be willing to risk physical assault for wearing the former trademarks of a 1%er motorcycle club. Once the trademarks go abandoned, if no one is using them to sell a good or a service, or to identify members of an association, it seems that, pursuant to federal trademark law, someone, perhaps a member of the Mongols Nation can start using the words again in association with a good or a service, or as a membership identifier, thereby obtain trademark rights in the words, and then register them with the federal government again.

About the only thing that does seem clear is that the First Amendment stops the government from preventing anyone from ever using the logo or the words “Mongols Nation” to identify a group of people. It will be interesting to see how this case develops. If someone does start using the Mongols Nation trademark or the logo, since this would not violate any criminal statute, it appears the government would have to fight that fight in civil, rather than criminal, court. That means the federal government would again subject itself to the possibility of having to pay the defendant’s attorneys’ fees if the court finds the case to be “exceptional.” Far from bringing this case to a decades-old conclusion, this recent jury verdict seems like just the beginning of a very long trademark fight with a very persistent group of bikers.

Brett Trout

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Posted in General, Trademark Law.

The Patent Office Offers Some Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility

The 2019 Guidance

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has just issued its 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance for use by USPTO personnel, which took effect January 7, 2019. The Guidance changes the procedures patent examiners use to determine under Alice/Mayo whether a patent claim directed to a judicial exception to patentability i.e. (laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas) is patentable or not. The Guidance outlines a new two-part Step 2A and a new Step 2B process patent examiners must undertake under Alice/Mayo in determining whether a patent claim is unpatentable as a judicial exception to patentability.

Step 1

Step 1 of the Alice/Mayo test, determining if the claim is to a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, remains unchanged.

Step 2A

Step 2A has been revised to be a two-part analysis. First, patent examiners must now reference specifically outlined categories (see below) of subject matter that constitute “abstract ideas.” Second, if a patent examiner determines that a patent claim contains an abstract idea, the patent examiner must now determine if the claim, as a whole, incorporates the judicial exception into a practical application. If the claim does not recite a judicial exception from one of the new categories, or if the claim does recite a judicial exception, but incorporates the judicial exception into a practical application, the claim is not “directed to” a judicial exception. Under newly revised Step 2A, it does not matter if the non-judicial exception elements of the claim are “well-understood, routine, conventional activity.” The only consideration under Step 2A is whether the claim incorporates the judicial exception into a practical application.

Step 2B

Only if the claim does recite a judicial exception from one of the new categories and does not incorporate the judicial exception into a practical application, may a patent examiner proceed to evaluate the patent eligibility of the claim under Step 2B. Step 2B under Alice/Mayo has been revised as well. Under new Step 2B, the examiner may consider whether the non-judicial exception elements of the claim are “well-understood, routine, conventional activity.” If the non-judicial exception element(s) of the claim are unconventional or otherwise more than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, the claim is patent eligible. Similarly, if the examiner determines that the element(s) amounts to significantly more than the exception itself the claim is patent eligible.

The New Groupings of Abstract Ideas

The groupings of subject matter under Step 2A that are considered “abstract ideas” are as follows:

(a) Mathematical concepts—mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations;
(b) Certain methods of organizing human activity—fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions);
(c) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind?(including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion).

Except under rare circumstances, that require special approval by the Technology Center Director, if the claims do not recite matter within one of the foregoing categories, patent examiners are not to treat the claims as reciting abstract ideas.

Examples of Integrating a Judicial Exception Into a Practical Application

The following is a non-exclusive list of examples of considerations that indicate an additional element(s) may have integrated a judicial exception into a patentable practical application:

The additional element(s) reflects an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field;

The additional element(s) applies or uses a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition;

The additional element(s) implements a judicial exception with, or uses a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim;

The additional element(s) effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; and

The additional element(s) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.

Examples of Not Integrating a Judicial Exception Into a Practical Application

Some examples in which a judicial exception has not been integrated into a practical application include the following:

The additional element(s) merely recites the words ‘‘apply it’’ (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely includes instructions to
implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea;

The additional element(s) adds insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception; and

The additional element(s) does no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.

Only time will tell whether the foregoing will add much-needed consistency to the judicial exception issue, but this Guidance appears to be a step in the right direction.

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Posted in Patent Law.

Disparaging Trademarks are So 2018. The New Hotness? Scandalous and Immoral Trademarks

Disparaging Trademarks

Back in 2017 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, barring the federal registration of “disparging” trademarks was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. In that case, an Asian American musician, Simon Tam, attempted to register the trademark “The Slants” for his band. Citing both Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act and Urban Dictionary, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) refused Mr. Tam’s trademark application on the grounds that the term “may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” Mr. Tam appealed the USPTO decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which ruled against the USPTO, finding “When the government discriminates against speech because it disapproves of the message conveyed by the speech, it discriminates on the basis of viewpoint.” The Federal Circuit also held that this section of The Lanham Act constituted unconstitutional content-based discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling

The USPTO then appealed the Federal Circuit decision to the Supreme Court. In Matal v. Tam, 137 S.Ct. 1744 (2017), The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Federal Circuit opinion, ruling that “The disparagement clause violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. Contrary to the Government’s contention, trademarks are private, not government speech.” In the opinion, the Supreme Court included the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”

Immoral and Scandalous Trademarks

In addition to barring disparaging trademarks, The Lanham Act also bars the federal registration of trademarks that consist of or comprise “immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter.” In 2011 an intent-to-use trademark application was filed for the trademark “FUCT.” Erik Brunetti had been using the trademark in association with his clothing line since 1990, so he obtained an assignment of the intent-to-use trademark application and amended it to allege use. The USPTO refused the registration, finding it comprised immoral or scandalous mater. In refusing the registration, the examining attorney “reasoned that FUCT is the past tense of the verb ‘fuck,’ a vulgar word, and is therefore scandalous” and unregistrable.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

Mr. Brunetti appealed the USPTO refusal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) which upheld the examining attorney’s decision. As noted by the Federal Circuit, the TTAB “noted that the word ‘fuct’ is defined by Urban Dictionary as the past tense of the verb ‘fuck’ and pronounced the same as the word ‘fucked,’ and therefore found it is ‘recognized as a slang and literal equivalent of the word ‘fucked,’ with ‘the same vulgar meaning.'” J.A. 6–7 & n.6. Finding the word vulgar, the TTAB upheld the refusal to register the trademark under §2(a) of the Lanham Act.

The Federal Circuit

Mr. Brunetti then appealed the TTAB ruling to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit did not dispute that the trademark was vulgar. Instead, the Federal Circuit determined five things. First, that federal trademark registration is not a government subsidy program, meaning the government has no authority to regulate the content of the speech. Second, that federal trademark registration is not a limited public forum, meaning the government cannot more freely restrict this type of speech. Third, that the prohibition on the federal registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks targets expressive content of speech and any such prohibitions should be subject to strict scrutiny to see if they meet constitutional muster. Fourth, that the Lanham Act’s bar on the federal registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks does not pass even intermediate scrutiny. Fifth, that there is no reasonable definition (even on Urban Dictionary I presume) that would preserve the constitutionality of the Lanham Act’s bar on the federal registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks. In light of those findings, the Federal Circuit reversed the TTAB, and found the Lanham Act’s bar on the federal registration of immoral or scandalous trademark to be unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court

The USPTO appealed the Federal Circuit decision in In re: Brunetti, 877 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2017) to the Supreme Court, arguing that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act does not restrict speech, but merely establishes permissible viewpoint-neutral eligibility requirements for a federal trademark registration. The Supreme Court accepted certiorari on this case and appears prepared to hear arguments and make a ruling in short order (at least short order as the Supreme Court goes). If the Supreme Court’s ruling in In Matal v. Tam is any indication, it appears likely that the Supreme Court will pare down the Lanham Act even further in this case and rule the Lanham Act’s bar on the federal registration of immoral or scandalous trademark is unconstitutional. So gather all of those immoral and scandalous trademarks you have been hoarding and put your trademark attorney on speed dial. 2019 could be your year.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Trademark Law.

First 1 Million Cups of 2019

If you have not been to a 1 Million Cups event, you are missing out. Des Moines 1 Million Cups events introduce and showcase different individuals involved with the Des Moines entrepreneurial ecosystem. Each week an entrepreneur gives a brief presentation on their latest project, before fielding questions and extracting insight from an audience of other entrepreneurs, professionals, and interested community members.

Des Moines’ 1 Million Cups events are held almost every Wednesday morning at 8a.m. at the Science Center of Iowa (which also kindly provides a ticket for free parking in the Science Center Parking Ramp during the event). The talks usually start between 8:30a.m. and 9a.m., but be sure to get there early to network with like-minded individuals over complimentary coffee.

This week’s presentation is from RackHouse Whiskey Club, a subscription service that curates and ships hard-to-find craft whiskeys to its club members in 40 states. I’ll be there, so be sure to say “Hi” if you stop by.

Brett Trout

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Posted in Des Moines, Iowa Law.

Top 5 Legal Issues for Podcasters – Number 1: Copyright Infringement

In this five-part series, we examine each of five potential intellectual property pitfalls podcasters can face and the steps you can take to reduce the likelihood of having one of these issues be the centerpiece of a lawsuit with your podcast’s name on it.

1. Copyright Infringement

Copyright law is probably the most well known and the least well understood intellectual property concept among podcasters, and the most likely to get you sued for infringement. So what is copyright? Copyright is the exclusive right to reproduce or distribute an original work of authorship. There is no requirement that you be the first author of the work in question, or that the work be unique. For instance, if you were rescued from a desert island after 50 years and had with you a story you had written, you could obtain copyright protection for that story, even if the story was a word-for-word version of David Foster Wallace’s 1996 classic Infinite Jest.

While there is no requirement your copyrighted work be unique, there is a requirement that you not simply take someone else’s work and claim it as your own. So even if you created a copyrightable work yourself, if the work you created on your desert island was indeed a word-for-word version of the David Foster Wallace novel, it may be difficult to convince a jury this was simply a case of lawful parallel thinking, rather than a case of unlawful copyright infringement. The point is that unlike patents and trademarks, in the case of copyrights, it is theoretically possible for two people to own a copyright in the exact same work, assuming they can prove they had no access to the other’s work.

So what does a copyright do? Copyright gives the owner of the copyright the following exclusive rights:

The right to reproduce the copyrighted work;
The right to prepare derivative works based on the copyrighted work;
The right to publicly distribute copies of the work;
The right to publicly perform the copyrighted work; and
The right to publicly display the copyrighted work

If someone violates one of more of your exclusive rights in your copyrighted work, they are infringing your copyright. How do you know if something is protected by copyright? Since copyright protection attaches as soon as a work is fixed in a tangible medium, such as when you record your podcast and store it on a computer hard, it is a good rule of thumb to assume that every work created after 1923 is protected by copyright. While registration is not required to obtain copyright protection, registration with the Copyright Office is required before you sue anyone for copyright infringement. You can always register your copyright after someone infringes your work, but if you wait to register, you could diminish the damages you are allowed to collect from the infringer.

To avoid copyright infringement it is important that you obtain permission to use every piece of copyrightable material you use on your podcast. From your logo, to your intro music, to sound bites, to pieces you may read from a text, or play off of YouTube, be sure that you have written permission before you publish any copyrightable work to your podcast. Best practices dictate that for works like your logo and music, that you obtain a legally enforceable assignment or license of copyright of those works, from their authors, before you use them. Simply paying someone to create a logo or piece of music for you is not enough. Paying an author to create a copyrightable work for you gives you only a limited license in that work. The author still owns that work. If you want to own that copyrightable work, you need to obtain a specific written assignment of copyright.

But what about fair use? Although fair use may allow you to use third-party copyrighted works in your podcasts, the rules surrounding fair use are complex and constrained to very limited circumstances. Never rely on fair use to use third-party copyrighted works without getting written approval from your intellectual property attorney before you use third-party works.

If you are found by a judge or jury to have infringed someone else’s copyright, in addition to the court ordering you to stop infringing and pay monetary damages to the copyright owner, the Copyright Statute also allows a court, under certain circumstances, to force you to pay punitive damages and the copyright owner’s attorneys’ fees. In egregious cases, there may even be criminal penalties, including fines and imprisonment. Infringing someone else’s copyright is definitely not a case where it is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. Always ask for permission first, and always get it in writing. If the copyright owner denies you permission to use the copyrighted work and you still want to use it, contact an intellectual property attorney to see if some type of fair use may apply. In no circumstances however, should you use someone else’s copyrighted material without permission.

Be sure to check out the other posts in this Top 5 Legal Issues for Podcasters series:

Number 2: Trademark Infringement
Number 3: Defamation
Number 4: Rights of Privacy and Publicity
Number 5: Patents

Brett Trout

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Posted in Choosing the Best Lawyer, Copyright Law, General, Internet Law.