Recent Post Updates

This week there have been several news updates on trademark cases about which I’ve written recently:

Back on November 19, 2010 I wrote about the Lamebook Legal Defense Fund, which was raising money to defend the parody site against Facebook’s claims of infringement.  On May 10, 2011, I wrote about Facebook v. Teachbook in which Facebook sued Teachbook for trademark infringement and dilution.  Taking a play from the Lamebook Boys, as they call themselves, the startup that operates Teachbook recently formed a non-profit legal defense fund called The Trust Agreement for the Prevention of Intellectual Property Bullying.  Boy do I know a number of folks whom they should hit up for donations to that.  There was good coverage of the story on a website called Northbrook Patch yesterday.

On May 2, 2011, I wrote about Apple’s attempt to federally register and enforce APP STORE as a mark.  Apple’s attempt to register APP STORE is being challenged by Microsoft, and Apple itself filed a case against Amazon.com over Amazon’s use of the term “app store.”  The Apple v. Amazon case seems like a long-shot to me, especially given Apple’s frequent descriptive or generic use of “app” throughout its marketing materials.  I just can’t see how the combination of “app” and STORE make a protectable mark.  Can you?  The folks at American University’s Washington College of the Law were kind enough to provide this case update on their Intellectual Property Brief blog today.

On April 2, 2011 I wrote about Christian Louboutin’s suit against Yves Saint Laurent over red-soled shoes, on which New York Magazine ran an article yesterday.

Also today, the court in Whitmill v. Warner Bros (about which I wrote yesterday) issued an Order Denying Whitmill’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction, allowing the movie studio to proceed on its release schedule.