You-Q wheelchair company blocked in their registration of “Beatle” as a trademark for wheelchairs

Last week, the Center for Copyright Information made some announcements that seemingly show it trying to balance business and consumer interests. There’s fuss that consumers should be more heavily represented in the CCI, but it’s only because the CCI is claiming to wield the market’s Internet access privileges.

The Pirate Bay has recently posted that it is looking into using drone technology to further its intellectual property infringing efforts.

The freedom to post videos on YouTube comes with copyright limits. This article addresses those limits and a bit of insight into the most significant law governing YouTube, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Yahoo sued Facebook for patent infringement on 10 of its social networking technology patents, including patents covering content feeds and privacy settings. Facebook can either choose to fight the lawsuit or settle it. Facebook will likely settle the case because of its IPO.

The Hobbit Pub in Southampton in England has been threatened with legal action for copyright infringement by lawyers representing the Saul Zaentz Company. The company has offered to allow licensing of the copyright for a fee. The show of public support for the pub has been enormous, with actors Sir Ian Mckellen and Stephen Fry offering to pay the licensing fees.

Twentieth Century Fox is being sued in the UK over the trademark “Glee” by the owner of the “Glee Club” comedy venues operating since 1994.

Facebook plans to add “book” to its user agreement’s list of terms for which it asserts trademark protection. Though the listing is not significant in itself, the likelihood of courts actually granting Facebook protection for this shows the strength of its brand within the context of social networking websites.

Federal appeals court reduces award against Skyride for false advertising, trademark infringement, and cybersquatting, but upholds permanent injunction

On March 20, 2012, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision and held in Mayo v. Prometheus that methods for determining the adequate dosage of thiopurine drugs in the treatment of certain diseases was not patentable under 15 U.S.C. § 101 as the methods only recited a process of the law of nature.