April 2016

Jason T. Throne, the former Intellectual Property General Counsel for Hunter Douglas, the U.S. affiliate of the $2.6 billion-in-sales Dutch-based manufacturer of window shades and blinds, has pled guilty to felony mail fraud and false tax submission charges. It appears that Mr. Throne misappropriated $5 million dollars from his employer by diverting funds to a company he owned, and charging off the expenditures as patent application searches that were never performed.

National bridal chain David’s Bridal has been accused of infringing designs for “convertible” bridesmaid’s dresses that belong to one Jenny Yoo. Miss Yoo claims that David's Bridal is producing knock-offs of her convertible dresses and selling them at its stores, so Jenny Yoo Collection is suing David’s Bridal in U.S. District Court in New York for patent, trademark and trade dress (no pun, intended or otherwise) infringement.

Back in 2006, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the “Trump Your Competition” trademark to a Nevada-based marketing consulting firm, Trump Your Competition. The trademark was cancelled in 2012 when Trump Your Competition (the company, not the trademark) failed to pay the renewal fee for Trump Your Competition (the trademark, not the company).

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a unit of the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office, just released a report that the value of imported counterfeit and pirated goods has topped $460 billion. These fake rip-offs include handbags, watches, perfume, machine parts, chemicals and medicine. According to the agency, counterfeit and pirated goods accounted for $461 billion of the $17.9 trillion worth of goods imported globally in 2013.

British rock group Led Zeppelin is being sued for copyright infringement over claims that the music for its 1971 song, "Stairway to Heaven," was lifted from an instrumental, “Taraus,” by the late Randy Craig Wolfe, who wrote his song back in 1967 and passed away just four years later. As part of the upcoming trial’s vior dire, jurors are required to complete a questionnaire that will query them on their knowledge of 1960s and 1970s rock-and-roll bands, their own music-download habits, and their opinions of “celebrities’ honesty.” Really? How honest do you think celebrities are?