The VLW Blog

Language-learning company Rosetta Stone has won the right to try part of its trademark infringement action against Internet industry giant Google, in a decision released earlier today by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rosetta Stone sued Google after it relaxed its policy on use of trademarks in ads on Google’s AdWords platform. Rosetta Stone [...]

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Richmond federal Judge John Gibney determined not to impose sanctions on lawyers for adult video makers who have asked the federal courts to help them enforce their copyrights.
In an Oct. 5 order, Gibney questioned whether the lawyers for the video companies had filed pleadings for an improper purpose in three separate cases. He suggested the [...]

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A Norfolk federal jury has rejected claims of an Alexandria lawyer that Twitter owed him $40 million for patent infringement.
A news release from the Troutman Sanders firm, local counsel for Twitter,  referred to attorney Dinesh Agarwal as a “patent troll.” Agarwal obtained a patent in 2002 for an “interactive virtual community of famous people.” He [...]

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A federal jury Tuesday found Verizon infringed patents for video-on-demand technology, delivering a big-dollar victory for a small tech company founded by a Virginia Beach man.
“We’re ecstatic,” one company lawyer told The Virginian-Pilot. The jury had been hearing testimony for three weeks in the case that focused on Verizon’s FiOS cable television service.
In May, a [...]

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A Danville writer researching the famous wreck of the “Old 97″ struck gold when he found a 400-page transcript from a trial involving the engineer’s family and the Southern Railway.
As the Danville Register & Bee reports, author Larry Aaron unearthed a number of new sources as he explored the ongoing debate over who was to [...]

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Security cameras in stores. Employees recording conversations with their bosses. Cameras that catch red-light runners. Police putting GPS devices on vehicles.
We live in a “surveillance society,” according to Professor Charles Ess, who spoke Sept. 20 at an ethics symposium on new media co-sponsored by the University of Richmond School of Law.
“Game over,” Ess said.
“We voluntarily [...]

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U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer affirmed yesterday a $19.3 million intellectual property verdict for the manufacturer of a computer keyboard support system.
The lawsuit pitted CompX International Inc. and its subsidiary, Waterloo Furniture Components Limited, and Humanscale Corp., the two largest companies in the field of ergonomic office products.
The case started as a patent infringement [...]

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Attorney’s fees are the cherry on the sundae for an IP lawyer who wins a trademark case. It takes an “exceptional” case for a fee award under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a).
The 4th Circuit has decided a pair of such “exceptional” cases in recent weeks, upholding a handsome fee award each time.
Super Duper Inc. sued Mattel, [...]

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Last week while I was out in my yard, I found a magnolia leaf with a curious marking.
So, now Mother Nature is copyrighting her leaves?
Would this fall under artistic works? Maybe discovery or invention? Most definitely an innovation and creative expression. I mean, who else has the market on trees? (The Big Guy excluded, of [...]

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Federal judges in the Eastern District’s “rocket docket” sometimes chide lawyers for their procedural skirmishes to maneuver cases in and out of federal court.
But one judge’s “procedural fencing” is another judge’s artful lawyering.
Richmond IP lawyer John W. Dozier Jr. has a Web site for his firm, Dozier Internet Law PC.
Unfortunately for Dozier, a Michigan resident [...]

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