Categories: trademark

  • Snapchat sued by Swiss rights collection society SUISA for refusing to pay its composers, songwriters and publishers

    Snap Inc., the owner of social media platform Snapchat, is being sued by Switzerland-based SUISA Digital Licensing for alleged copyright infringement.
    SUISA Digital is a subsidiary of the music rights collection society SUISA that collects digital publishing royalties outside the U.S. for its 80,000 songwriters, composers, publishers and about 10 million works. It has created license agreements

  • Can IP laws protect your work from being ripped off when evolving technologies are constantly changing the rules of the game?

    Content creation is at an all-time high due to platforms such as Meta, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and the advent of new technologies such as NFTs has brought all kinds of challenges for IP lawyers when it comes to protecting your innovations or creations.
    World Intellectual Property Day is an annual event that is celebrated on April 26. The theme of this year’s event was “IP and Youth:

  • Comedian Amy Schumer called out for stealing a joke at Oscars, but says "I'm funny enough, I don’t need to steal shit."

    Amy Schumer has been accused of plagiarizing a joke from Twitter for her Oscars opening speech.
    In her monologue, Schumer said: "Leonardo DiCaprio, what can I say about him? He has done so much to fight climate change and leave behind a cleaner, greener planet for his girlfriends. Because he's older and they are younger. Okay, you get it.”
    The joke triggered huge laughs in the audience. Howe

  • Bill introduced to strip Disney of its copyright protection for Mickey Mouse may bring into question US’ global commitments to its IPR treaties

    US Senator Josh Hawley has introduced the Copyright Clause Restoration Act, a new bill to strip corporations like Disney of special copyright protections. His bill would limit new copyright protections to 56 years and make the change retroactive for massive corporations like Disney that have been granted long copyright monopolies.
    The action comes after Florida lawmakers deprived Disney of spec

  • teamLab sues a museum for copying its immersive art, but can it really be protected when the artwork itself is ever-changing?

    Japanese art collective teamLab, founded in 2001 and known for creating 360-degree interactive software environments, has sued the Museum of Dream Space (MODS) for violating its copyrights.
    teamLab’s museums have become popular over the years. In fact, its museum installations and other players such as Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrored Rooms” and the Color Factory are so successful that they ha

  • Australian designer Ambra Fossati accuses beauty influencer of copying a dress design

    Australian designer Ambra Fossati has accused a beauty influencer Shani Grimmond also hailing from Down Under, for allegedly copying her design.
    The dress in question is a crew-neck maxi with long sleeves and sheer stretch knit that Grimmond hinted at releasing under her Sylk Swim label on her Instagram account, which has a massive following of 1.4 million users.
    Fossati is a well-known desi

  • Did Swedish fashion house H&M copy textured knitwear design from a young designer?

    A young London-based Asian-American fashion designer Chet Lo has accused the Swedish clothing brand H&M of copying his signature highly textured knitwear.
    The allegation revolves around a pink knitwear dress included in H&M’s “Innovation Cherish Waste” collection that looks like Lo’s famous spiky design, which was featured in Doja Cat and SZA’s “Kiss Me More” music video.
    As soon as

  • Rip-off or not: Malaysians identify a copycat brand of Spanish frozen dessert brand ‘llaollao’ on the first day of its launch

    A newly open dessert store in Malaysia is being blamed for copying the whole concept of a frozen store franchise that operates in the country.
    II.Ia.Io, a Malaysian small business that specialises in frozen yogurt, recently opened its first outlet to compete with llaollao, a Spanish frozen yoghurt desert chain that operates in the nation.
    As soon as the new store opened its doors to customer

  • Rip-off or not: Croatia coin design winner blamed for plagiarism

    The winner of Croatia’s coin logo competition is accused of copying the design from a 17-year-old photo taken by a Scottish photographer and has since withdrawn from the competition and returned the prize money.Croatia needs a new coin design for circulation as it is adopting the Euro currency in 2023. To achieve this goal, the country’s central bank had organized a competition for the best design

  • Spanx’s founder couldn’t afford a patent attorney. So she figured out how to protect her IP herself.

    Twenty years ago, American entrepreneur Sara Blakely launched a business selling shapewear that was more comfortable and more effective than anything else on the market at the time. She called the brand Spanx. And in 2021, she sold a majority share of this business to investment company Blackstone, bringing her net worth to over US$1 billion.
    Blakely couldn’t have grown her business without tre

  • Rip-off or not: Wordle and the word games it inspired

    Wordle is the new sensation sweeping the Internet, and it all boils down to its resolutely simple rules. This word game is hosted on an ad-free website, you can only play it once a day, and the creator has no intention of making the game addictive or viral. There isn’t even an app version — at least not an official one.
    Still, this game of guessing a different five-letter English word each day

  • India steps up IP protection for Darjeeling Himalayan Railway's century-old logos

    Being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site can help to catalyse tourist interest, and thus generate value for a country’s economy. As these sites are regularly reviewed to assess whether their conservation status qualifies them for a continued place on this list, it also incentivises governments to prioritise the protection of their countries’ historical architecture and infrastructure. If one views

  • What might a full IP protection toolkit for brands look like?

    The continued growth of e-commerce means that counterfeit products which were once sold on the streets in the dark of night can now be purchased on the world’s most popular retail platforms. Bharat Kapoor – Vice-President, Online Brand Protection, for authentication and information services firm Authentix – shares more about how to tackle this problem.
    This conversation with PitchMark managing

  • Giving creators more recognition

    The Copyright Bill tabled in Singapore’s Parliament on July 6, 2021, came into force in November. What were the factors that spurred these amendments, and what do they mean for creators and their clients? Lam Chung Nian – who heads the Intellectual Property, Technology & Data Group at Singapore’s WongPartnership law firm – shares more.
    This conversation with PitchMark managing partner Mark

  • The damage that fake goods can do to brands is very real

    Counterfeit products are the bane of many industries, and most of these products are manufactured in and distributed from Asia. What can companies do to protect and enforce their intellectual property rights?
    Andrew Bradshaw is the President of the Asian Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, an organization that coordinates IP investigations for some of the world’s leading brands, and h

  • 5 reasons innovators should use PitchMark

    Prevention is better than cure. That’s why when we buy a vehicle, we buy an insurance plan for it too. But what safeguards do innovators have when it comes to their ideas?
    That’s where PitchMark comes in. Idea theft is a problem that many innovators face, and the financial loss and hurt feelings that arise from seeing your ideas copied by others without consent, credit and compensation can be

  • Tarantino’s controversial Pulp Fiction NFTs offer a glimpse of entertainment’s future

    When it was released in 1994, Pulp Fiction was lauded for its innovative breaking of the chronological order, its distinctive dialogue, and for break-out performances from Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Travolta. It was one of the movies that propelled the 1990s wave of indie cinema, and its writer-director Quentin Tarantino became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated auteurs.
    And it l

  • How royal couple Harry and Meghan upped their IP game

    With a musical, a movie and recent and upcoming seasons of the immensely popular series The Crown all featuring the late Princess Diana, the troubled life of the British icon is capturing the popular imagination once again.
    In the real world, her two sons are navigating life under the public spotlight in their own ways. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, in particular, have carved out th

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