Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a.k.a. “the wedding cake case.” In 2012, baker and cake designer Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, CO informed David Mullins and Charlie Craig, that he would not make a new cake for their wedding due to his Christian belief that ...
Photo source by spaxiax Another Supreme Court First Amendment decision this past Monday was a source of excitement for parties who consistently argue that copyright enforcement in cyberspace cannot help but infringe First Amendment rights. I’ll say at the outset that I fully agree with the decision in this case but very much doubt any proposal that the opinion in Packingham v. North ...
In 2010, the Oregon-based, Asian-American band had its application for a trademark in the name The Slants rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The denial was based on a statute in the 1946 Lanham Act prohibiting registration of marks “which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or ...
SCOTUS Photo by jgroup After ten years and what must be thousands of attorney hours, the “Dancing Baby” case may have to do an about-face at the steps of the Supreme Court and, get this, actually go to trial. On May 5, the Solicitor General filed its brief recommending that SOCTUS deny a writ of certiorari in Lenz v. UMG, finding no ...
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a copyright case that addresses the principle of “separability.” This is one of those areas of IP that a colleague of mine would call the “metaphysics of law,” and that’s not a criticism. In fact, I happen to think the more subtle aspects of copyright—the ones that challenge judges to weigh esoteric ideas ...
