Today's Wall Street Journal includes a very interesting story about a legal fight between Parker Brothers, the makers of the game "Monopoly," and the inventor of a game called "Anti-Monopoly" (click here). "Ralph Anspach, an 83-year-old economics professor, spent decades locked in a real-life battle with Monopoly and its corporate owners. The campaign dented his finances, sent him on a nationwide trek for intelligence and sparked a legal case that reached the steps of the Supreme Court. . . .Prof. Anspach's woes began with a real-life trademark fight for the right to sell his own game, called Anti-Monopoly. Along the way, he says he helped to publicize the little-known origins of the classic American game."

Tags: General Interest, Intellectual Property

Tech Crunch reports today (click here) on a service called Trademarkia (click here), which lets "you search all U.S. trademarks filed since 1870, including dead marks. The company has scans of all the marks and returns results in a very appealing visual grid. You can search by company, theme, product category, or even filing attorney. Companies can also file a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office through the site. . . . Trademarkia is a great resource for anyone researching trademarks, companies getting ready to file a trademark, or even product and brand logo designers. It operates much like a domain registrar like GoDaddy. Instead of searching for available domain URLs, you search for trademarks, and if they are available, you can register them for a fee."

Tags: Intellectual Property, Trademarks

This item suggests that some caution may be warranted in using RECAP, the Firefox plug-in referenced in the August 17, 2009 post, below.

Tags: Federal Courts, Public Records, Technology, Intellectual Property

The ABA Journal has an interesting article about a clever new Firefox browser plug-in called RECAP, which is intended to expand access to federal court documents. RECAP duplicates documents that are accessed through the PACER website and stores them in a free public archive. PACER, in contrast, charges eight cents per page. The “Watch RECAP in Action” video here shows how it works. It will be interesting to see how this project progresses and whether any challenges will be raised. TechCrunch has a brief discussion of some of the issues here. As one of the commenters to the TechCrunch piece points out, one issue is the inadvertent publication of confidential information, if a document is subject to a protective order. I note also that RECAP’s terms of use purport to shift risk to the user, and that RECAP’s “About” page raises some questions as to the legality of RECAP.

Tags: Federal Courts, Public Records, Technology, Intellectual Property

This article in today’s New York Times contains some good intellectual property pointers for small businesses. Be sure to check out the “Quick Tips” and “Suggested Reading” links on the left-hand side of the page. These are all good things to consider.

Tags: Intellectual Property, Small Business