Questions tagged [intellectual-property]
For questions concerning the ownership of ideas, designs and creative work. Specific IP tags include copyright, trademark, and patents.
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Invention assignment in case of live/work arrangement in California
Section 2870 of the California Labor Code protects an employee's ownership in personal inventions so long as these inventions are ... developed entirely on his or her own time without using the ...
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1answer
42 views
Video Copyright: Can I mix my videos to one video and copyright one time?
Suppose I have a large number of videos and I want to register the copyright on them so others can't copy them and use them.
Instead of paying for each registration alone, is it okay to mix all of ...
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1answer
34 views
How do I legally quote one or two lines of lyrics in a novel I plan to publish?
I've been thinking about publishing my novel on SmashWords and CreateSpace after having written it five years ago. However, in a paragraph, I quoted two lines of Lyrics, but didn't give the name of ...
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1answer
20 views
Protecting IP of video subject
I have several projects and inventions the development of which I would like to chronicle on YouTube, however I'm also aware of the risks in doing so as anyone viewing the videos would be able to ...
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2answers
29 views
License to grant intellectual property of paper created in a company
Is there a license -Open Source license, maybe- which grants the intellectual property on a paper (how-to guide, for example) I have created in a company, even if I work for it?
I would like to make ...
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1answer
72 views
Can I sample my synthesizer's sounds to use in my own commercial game releases?
I bought a synthesizer (Yamaha CS1x) back in 1997. Recently I've been developing games for Android and iPhone and need a sound effects source. The CS1x might be useful. Is it legal for me to sample ...
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2answers
62 views
Intellectual property and storage medium
A State owned hard drive contains intellectual property belonging to an individual. Can the State remove that hard drive from the premises of the individual without his consent?
EDIT:
The property ...
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1answer
38 views
Can I use a branded product name and/or product pictures in their retail packaging in my paid cooking video?
I'm making cooking videos of my own recipes for selling on line. In order to help viewers replicate my recipes exactly, I'd like to:
Refer to brand-name ingredients in my video, e.g., "Great Value ...
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1answer
41 views
Does copyright law extend to ideas expressed in movies?
My main question is in regards to ideas expressed in movies, but which are not fully explored. For example, if a science fiction movie presents a race which has a particular habit or nuance which is ...
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12 views
Can the name of a fictional place be used on merchandise?
If I were to sell apparel with say the name of a fictional organization would I need special permissions or licensing?
Ex: Yakatomi Towers was from the movie 'Die Hard'. Could I sell apparel with '...
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12 views
“Space Data Corp. v. X” on the NDA protection of trade secrets
I have a few questions about the meaning of some stuff in this case: Space Data Corp. v. X.
(1) Google first contends that Space Data's claims for misappropriation of trade secrets pursuant to both ...
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2answers
405 views
Is this Intellectual Property clause over-reaching?
Here's an extract from my (employee) contract
All rights to any material and results, and all intellectual property rights related thereto, made, written, designed or produced by Nathan Cooper ...
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24 views
Trademark stolen?
I started an organisation with two other people. I am the one who gave it a name (let's call it "Great"), I am the one who purchased the domain with the .com value. The company incorporated as "Great" ...
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1answer
61 views
Can an employer steal intellectual property?
Say someone wrote some software PRIOR to employment at the company where they currently work.
They presented it to a CEO and three other high level employees of the company. They expressed, what the ...
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1answer
42 views
Kellogg v National Biscuit Co
In Kellogg v National Biscuit Co it was ruled that once a utility patent expires the patentee can never make a trademark-like claim to the exclusive use of the source-identifying function of the shape ...
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35 views
The Lanham Act: how similar is too similar in trademarks
The Lanham Act prohibits the unauthorized use of a reproduction, copy, or imitation of a registered trademark in a way that "is likely to cause confusion" with the registered mark. One factor taken ...
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2answers
40 views
Anticipating “novelty” in patent law
In its opinion the Court discusses earlier wire fence construction that, though somewhat similar to Glidden’s, did not “anticipate” the Glidden invention. “Anticipate” is a term of art in patent law. ...
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2answers
33 views
How non-public could a disclosure/publication be, and still count as such for patent “prior art” and copyright purposes? [closed]
The essence of both patent and copyright is that a creator/inventor gets legal protection and exclusivity within broad limits, in exchange for some form of publication/public disclosure. Similarly a ...
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1answer
42 views
How do I determine whether or not a book cover and its imagery is in the public domain?
I'd like to use scans/photos of old book covers in a product I'm selling. Are the laws regarding the images on the cover different from the ones regarding the content of the book? How to I check to ...
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2answers
54 views
do we have to register our trademark to be valid… can we take a legal action if someone is using similar trademark but our is not registered?
My question is about do we have to register our trademark to be valid.
1. can we take a legal action if someone is using similar trademark but our is not registered?
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3answers
74 views
Can copying simple general code cause copyright infringement? And is it even possible to avoid that?
Imagine that during writing software for the employer, I created simple helper function
IsPositiveNumber(x) which returns true if x > 0 and false otherwise.
Or function TrimBlanks(text) which returns ...
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1answer
48 views
can we legally use the source code of customer software without asking them?
My question is
can we use the source code of the software that we made for previous customer and we use that source code again legally without his permission?
can he take any legal action ?
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2answers
102 views
Legality of the use of commercial fonts available for free from uxfree.com
I am interested in using the Futura PT family of fonts in a web application for the company at which I work. I initially found Futura PT listed on fonts.google.com, but the font wasn't available for ...
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1answer
182 views
Can an ex-employer sue ex-employees for using work experience gained for future endeavours?
In this bloomberg article, 5 ex-employees of a hedge fund were sued by their ex-employer for starting a trading outfit.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-19/the-triple-jeopardy-of-ke-xu-...
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1answer
29 views
Does creating an unpaid event poster for a commercial event constitute commercial use?
Licenses of artworks or stock photos often state that they are free for non-commercial use.
Assume I create a poster for an event. I do not sell the poster, but the event is commercial (has an entry ...
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1answer
44 views
Who owns the logo of a company after the company declares bankruptcy?
Who owns the logo of a company after the company declares bankruptcy? For example who owns the logo for toys R'us after they declare bankrupt?
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31 views
In principle, what actions might be open to Lego in this situation?
It's my understanding that Lego System A/S, doing business as The Lego Group, no longer holds a registered design protection or design patents on the Lego interlocking block system itself, hence the ...
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1answer
55 views
Copying programming problems (with proper citation) in order to write explanations on how to solve them in a blog/website.
I will be doing two things:
Make a blog/website and copy and paste algorithmic questions and other programming problems word by word (could be from books or other websites) and properly cite them. ...
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1answer
26 views
Partial usage of third-party content in a mobile application
I notice few applications in App Store use articles from news web-sites such a New York Time, The Guardian etc.
But, they do not use photos or graphics (actually they use their own photos and ...
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2answers
125 views
Commercial usage of photos of extreme close-up of popular electronics
Let's say I make a photo of iPhone screen through the microscope, so field of view of the photo is just several pixels and individual RGB components of the screen are visible - so it's not possible ...
2
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2answers
79 views
Is Unsplash a liability trap?
They claim to provide photos for universal use under a perpetual no-royalty no-attribution license.
From https://unsplash.com/license
All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You ...
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2answers
55 views
Can I write about a *copy* of a dead celebrity?
I'm writing a science fiction novel and I want to use Jim Morrison (lead singer for The Doors who died 47 years ago) as a minor character. Actually, it is a copy of Jim Morrison uploaded after his ...
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1answer
165 views
Revoking my right to defend my Intellectual Property by using Let's Encrypt
Agreement: https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.1.1-August-1-2016.pdf
Section of interest:
BY WAY OF FURTHER EXPLANATION REGARDING THE SCOPE OF THE DISCLAIMER,
AND WITHOUT WAIVING OR ...
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1answer
34 views
Derivative softwares copyrigths from a more generic software
Imagine consultancy C has a generic software for analyzing data S.
Now C has a client C1 and from the software S it derives a software S1 to analyzed some specific data for C1. The overall dependency ...
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1answer
34 views
Copyright on code from public source
Let's imagine consultancy A develops a code for client B that use some free available code from a website so it's a derivative work from the free code (MIT license). Can consultancy A re-use the same ...
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1answer
50 views
software copyright : implementing the same class structure but for different specific clients and purpose
Let's assume the same consultancy implements for client A a software to analyze text data from internal communication of the company. The client B asked the same software to analyze text data from ...
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1answer
32 views
How to manage intellectual property right for different clients from a consultancy
let's say company A is a consultancy in field XX and develops software solutions for client B. Client B clearly retains the IP of the work done. Then company A will have 2 more clients C and D. Now, ...
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2answers
679 views
If I don't patent my invention, how closely can a competitor copy my product?
Introduction:
I had an idea for how to make a certain product much better. I'm currently in the prototyping stage for a product based on that idea. That idea (the solution to the problem of improving ...
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1answer
64 views
Do I face liability for publishing a ranked list of companies?
I want to create a website in which I will list various of companies in a niche area. I will write pros/cons and publish a ranking list based on my opinion. So my questions are:
Can I create such a ...
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2answers
70 views
Company stole my IP. Are there costless remedies?
If a well-funded company steals an individual's intellectual property, are there any means to sue or otherwise enforce the IP rights without costing the victim anything? (I.e., if the victim does not ...
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2answers
28 views
Re-use images uploaded by users on Google Maps for the website
Can I use images uploaded by users on Google Maps to display on my website ?
If yes, do I need to reference images back to the Google Maps and how ?
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1answer
45 views
Contact Microsoft legal department, or other ways to facilitate reinstatement of a Google Play app
I used an icon of Microsoft Notepad (taken from Wikipedia) as the icon for a free Notepad application Fast Notepad in Google Play. It probably was beneficial for the community, as it had no ads, and ...
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1answer
43 views
Is it IP infringement if I fabricate an object from a publicly available research paper?
I have tried searching for succinct answers to the following but that which I have found is ambiguous and murky. I am after black and white answers as many of us have probably come across this tricky ...
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1answer
30 views
What effect does it have when something contains the phrase “copyright 2018 MrAuthor”
I'm curious why some documents (both written on paper and source code) sometimes literally say something like "Copyright 2018 Bill Gates" for example.
This question occured to me because I just came ...
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1answer
75 views
Is a developer liable for illicit use of an app? [duplicate]
A software developer receives a Content Infringement complaint against his app, which facilitates video downloads from YouTube. The software developer believes he is not responsible for the act of ...
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0answers
49 views
Commercial use of a machine learning trained model whose use is allowed, but use of data is not allowed?
I've found several questions similar to this, but none of them had the same details of my case: There is a publicly available trained model released under public domain by its creator. But creators of ...
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3answers
70 views
Why intellectual property and not just trade secrets?
Why are intellectual property rights necessary when nothing prevents a company from having trade secrets?
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1answer
53 views
Which Supreme Court justices have been the most anti-intellectual property? [closed]
Which Supreme Court justices, present or historical, have ruled the most against intellectual property rights?
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1answer
56 views
Legal ramifications for having video game source code available for download?
I'm currently developing a game for which I want to document my experience with online through my website. On the site, one of things I want to offer anyone who subscribes to my mailing list is access ...
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2answers
114 views
Is it safe to use public domain images of Wikipedia for commercial purposes (like printing on a product)?
I searched for public domain images on Wikipedia for my t-shirts.
Here is an example public domain image.
The permission section for the image says:
This image consists only of simple geometric ...
