“RTs do not = endorsements.” We’ve all seen it on Twitter bios, usually bios belonging to members of the media. These kinds of disclaimers, disassociating the tweets from the people who retweet them, are common. The Twitter bio belonging to Brian Stelter of the New York Times (@brianstelter) notes, “RT & links aren’t endorsements.” A [...]

It is a task often relegated to the office interns: posting promotional content to outside social media sites. Despite the fact that this practice is officially frowned upon in the Federal Trade Commission’s 2009 endorsement guidelines, companies will often engage paid individuals – either employees on the payroll or outside bloggers who receive compensation in [...]

Unlike traditional newsroom journalists, “citizen journalists” have no formal way to ensure that everyone maintains similar quality standards.  Which does not mean that quality standards are necessarily (or consistently) maintained at traditional newsrooms, but rather that a traditional hierarchical editorial structure imposes at least theoretical guidelines. By definition, citizen journalism’s inherent difference from the traditional [...]

Two dueling tattoo parlors down the road from one another in Mobile, Alabama. It could be the premise of a TLC reality show.  It’s not (yet) a TV show, but it IS a court case recently decided by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. In September, that court ruled in favor of Chassity Ebbole, owner [...]

Eleven years ago, the District of Columbia announced the “New E-Conomy Transformation Act of 2000”, which set up tax benefits encouraging technological innovation.  The Act became effective April 3, 2001. “My vision for our city is to become the technology capital of the world….  We want to attract and retain leaders in the fields of [...]

What is a “trademark use”?  This question comes up in this way: You want to use a trademarked name or brand or logo (not yours).  You want to make commentary about the trademark, or simply reference the trademark in some way. Trademark protections give their owners the right of exclusive use to the trademark, but [...]

One unintended consequence of the accelerating popularity of HTML5 for mobile app development is an ability to skate past Apple’s App Store restrictions on in-app sales.  So I put this question to Piotr Steininger of Tapangi Consulting: There’s talk out there about being able to use HTML5 to get around Apple’s App Store ban on [...]

In March of this year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland denied the preliminary injunction that the Pennsylvania “Field of Screams” had sought against the Maryland “Field of Screams.” Andrew Mirsky wrote about this case last fall, a trademark infringement action involving a haunted amusement house in Pennsylvania operating under the name [...]

In June of this year, Senator Al Franken (D. Minn.) introduced the “Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011” (S. 1223).  According to the bill summary available on Franken’s website, a 2010 investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that 47 of the top 101 mobile applications for Apple iPhones and Google Android phones disclose user location [...]

Sector Labs, a California company that makes a smartphone-size video projector, filed a federal trademark registration in 2003 for the name “video pod”. Apple, Inc. challenged the registration, filing an opposition to Sector Lab’s registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  Apple claimed (among other things) that Sector Labs’ “video pod” “is extremely similar [...]