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What's in a Name? Frequently Asked Questions About Trademarks
When it comes to your company's identity, nothing is more vital to your company than your name and logo. By developing a catchy name and snazzy logo for your business, you can quickly get your company recognized, remembered, and respected.
Once you have come up with a winning name and logo, you ...
Waymo v. Uber: Patrolling the Line Between Patents and Trade Secrets
The Fuzzy Line Between Patents & Trade Secrets:
Patents and trade secrets provide different but complementary scopes of protection for valuable business information. While patents protect new and non-obvious inventions that become disclosed to the public at some point during patent prosecutio...
Trade Secrets and Zoom Calls: Be Aware of the Pitfalls
With the shift to remote work likely here to stay for many, companies and their employees are regularly relying on remote conferencing tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx and other platforms to conduct business. Companies should be aware of a recent decision from the Chancery Court in Dela...
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Intellectual Property
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A Heart-to-Heart Conversation About Trademarks: Heart LLC v. Heart Pizza
Two Portland businesses, Heart LLC and Heart Pizza LLC, are currently battling over the use of their very similar names. Heart LLC has been using the trademark HEART in connection with specialty coffee goods and services since 2009. Heart Pizza LLC, on the other hand, started using the trademark ...
Memes & Copyright Infringement: What Happens When a Tweet Goes Viral?
Think Before you Tweet:
If you're at all active on social media, you're likely to come across dozens of memes each day. According to Merriam-Webster, a meme is "an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially throug...
Employers, Employees, Independent Contractors, and Intellectual Property: Whose Right is it Anyway?
Employee-Created Intellectual Property:
If you're a creative employee, you may be wondering who owns the intellectual property rights to your creations. Employee-created assets can involve all types of intellectual property, including trademarks, logos, designs, illustrations, literary works, p...
Patents and Confidentiality: What You Need to Keep Secret and Why
Shhh... It's a Secret:
Most inventors know that when they come up with what might be a patentable invention, they should keep their invention under wraps to avoid getting their ideas stolen. But there are also lesser known and potentially more important reasons for confidentiality before filing...
Apple Loses to Samsung in Supreme Court Design Patent Case, But the Battle Isn’t Over
Apple iPhone (left) vs. Samsung Galaxy S (right). Pretty similar, right?
Samsung Beats Apple in a Unanimous Supreme Court Decision:
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled on a design patent case—its first time doing so in over 120 years. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court sided with Samsung i...
Should You Seek Patent Protection For Your Cannabis-Related Invention?
Marijuana plant legally grown in Portland, OR. © Alice Carrier.
Kind of Legal, but Also Kind of Illegal:
Even though several states—including Oregon and Washington—have legalized both recreational and medical marijuana, marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Specifically, the Controlled S...