Blackletter

Tiger Lily Ventures, a British company was seeking to name their whiskey Lehman Brothers. The trademark lapsed in the U.S. Register. The Barclays failed to renew the trademark in 2013 and Tiger Lily jumped on top of that and filed a trademark for whiskey and beer using the Lehman Brothers name. The argument that Barclay's made about the marks was a) they own the marks, b) the marks are famous and c) clearly if Tiger Lily uses the marks for whiskey, even though it's not the same goods and services as Lehman Brothers Financial Services or Barclays Financial Services, people are going to make some association back to the original owner of the mark, in this case, Barclays, and it would result therefore in dilution of the distinctive quality of Barclay's mark. Further, the Tiger Lily's mark falsely alludes to a connection between Barclay's predecessor in interest Lehman Brothers.  Despite Tiger Lily's defense that Lehman let the mark lapse, all trademark rights derived from use in commerce and common law rights a

Tom Dunlap chats with Mo Bunnell, the founder and CEO of Bunnell Idea Group, about how professionals such as lawyers, doctors and accountants can market themselves and their services. We also discuss his book, The Snowball System, which is a deep exploration of these topics.  

Kanye was actually sued over a song called Ultra Light Beam. The plaintiffs were Andrew Green and Shirley Green suing on behalf of their daughter, which in the lawsuit, I assume she's a minor, was identified solely as NG, that's November Golf, and somebody named Andrea Green. At the beginning of a song by Kanye, there's a small sample from that work, Ultra Light Beam that involves the NG miner and Andrea Green praying together and saying something about not having devils in the house. Kanye sampled that, it was in his song. Apparently, he had approached NG's original mother and then NG was adopted, and the original mother had given him permission, but nothing in writing and no money. All of it comes down to the fact though of something much simpler, and I think it's something that companies and individuals and anyone who does anything that's copyrightable, from software to fictional work, needs to take note of. Since the case, The Fourth Estate, the United States Supreme Court has said over and over again,

Tom Dunlap chats with David Notowitz, of National Center for Audio & Forensics, and David Ludwig, of Dunlap, Bennett and Ludwig, about how much information is stored in digital evidence and why attorneys need to thoroughly analyze video and audio files the way they do other documents. We also discuss what can go wrong if attorneys don’t do their homework with digital evidence.  David Notowitz is the founder and lead audio, video, and digital forensic expert of NCAVF, the National Center for Audio and Video Forensics. NCAVF provides all levels of consulting, video and audio clarification, and media preparation for legal situations - from video production, 3D scene reconstruction, and forensic measurements to media enhancement, cellphone recovery and analysis, and testimony as an expert witness. From 2001 until today, NCAVF has grown into one of the top privately owned audio, video, and smartphone forensic companies in the country with six full time emp

On November 10th, there is a crazy important case that involves a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA. The ACA is the healthcare law that some people call Obamacare. And what's being challenged specifically in this case is something called minimum essential coverage provision. And sometimes you heard it called the individual mandate. What this minimum essential coverage provision says is that if you don't have healthcare, then you have to pay a penalty. And it's being challenged because Congress set the penalty to $0 starting January 2019. And what that resulted in is a lot of states saying, well, that's unconstitutional because the penalty of $0 essentially means that provision of the law doesn't do anything. And doesn't generate, "At least some revenue." As a result, Texas, and a number of other states have filed suit to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act based on that one provision. And there's a really great breakdown of this on the internet, if you just type in California versus Texas

Today, we're going to talk about the Netflix lawsuit involving the estate of sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series. The Doyle estate sued Netflix over its making of a film called Enola Holmes. That film is about the 14-year-old fictional sister of Sherlock Holmes. The issue is that most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, at least those published prior to 1923, were found to be out of copyright by another court, so that left the Doyle estate with only Sherlock Holmes stories published between 1923 and 1927, approximately 10 stories, which they claim is when Sherlock Holmes, the character, was developed. The Enola movie, of course, involves a fictional sister Sherlock Holmes that does not appear in any of the Sherlock Holmes books. Copyright law, when it comes to protecting fictional characters, there are two basic tests. There's the character delineation test and the story-being-told test. They sort of come to the same thing, but the character delineation test specifically has been sai

Today, we're going to figure out what the UK thinks about Venezuela's president. Is it Nicolas Maduro or Juan Guaido? There's a question in Venezuela as to who the head of the government is. The United Kingdom officially thinks that it's Juan Guaido. They've said that Maduro has suppressed the local populous and suppressed voters and therefore they issued an official statement saying that Maduro was not the president, Guaido was, even though Maduro was in control, at least allegedly in control of the government. So why is this a big deal? Well, there's $2 billion sitting in the Bank of England and Brazil? At least the putative government under Maduro has sued to get that money and the UK has said, originally the high court said, "Well, that's not your money. That belongs to the head of government Guaido." But what's interesting is an English court of appeal overturned that ruling. They didn't decide that Maduro was the true head of government but they recertified it back to the high court to find out from th

Tom Dunlap chats with Rhonda Miller, partner of Dunlap, Bennett & Ludwig, about how to protect your assets during a global pandemic and the presidential election. 

The US Supreme court recently had a big decision when they removed a judge's order, saying that South Carolinians who are voting had to have a witness. A judge in South Carolina said that the state's rule that you had to have a witness before you could send your mail in ballot. The judge ruled that that couldn't stand and he stopped the state from implementing that change, and the Supreme Court stayed that judges order saying that ruling could stand. Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence that listed two reasons for this. One, he said that the constitution and trust the safety and health of people to the states, and that the judiciary should not second guess the states election rules during a COVID pandemic. And second, he said that the Supreme Court has, for many years, emphasized that federal courts ordinarily would not alter any election rules this close to an election. The Supreme court recently reinstated a similar law in Alabama, but refuse to reinstate a similar law in Rhode Island that required two witnesses. 

Today the question, what happens legally if a candidate or if the president dies before the election day? Well, we all know if the president passes away that the vice president gets sworn in and he sits in that office until the election happens. But what happens if a candidate for president dies before the election happens, can a political party replace a candidate? It seems that the answer is yes, but not this year because we're too close to election day. According to associated press already 63 million ballots have been sent to voters and 3 million votes have already been cast. So it's unlikely that they'd be able to substitute a candidate. Only Congress could change the date of the election, and they're unlikely to do that this year. What happens if somebody who's elected dies before they take office, between the votes, November 3rd and January 20th at noon, when officially the sitting president's term ends and the next president's term begins? If that person dies, then the constitution, the 20th amendmen

In Season 4, Blackletter has covered a variety of topics, from nanoparticle technology to the challenges of enforcing non-compete agreements. We discuss how different areas of the law have been affected by COVID 19 and how individuals can navigate these uncertain times. 

Today, we're going to talk about legal issues and going back to school. So the coronavirus, this global pandemic's still going on and some schools are back in session. What does that mean? Well, it means that there's liability. Probably means they're going to be lawsuits. Some schools are having students sign liability waivers and other schools and school districts have said, "We're not doing that and we find them wholly unenforceable." What's the real answer? Well, the answer is from what I can tell, it depends. Some states have sovereign immunity for teachers and school districts as long as they follow CDC and federal guidelines for reopening school and complying with pandemic guidelines and protecting their students. And other states have different rules for tort immunity for their teachers and professionals. What about other students? You go to school and your child is sick and gets another child sick. Can you get sued? The unfortunate answer as we sit here right now is probably everybody can get sued.

Today, we're going to talk about the 2020 election and voting in the time of a pandemic. With COVID-19, what does that mean for showing up at the polls?  A little bit of background about how voting laws work. The Elections Clause of the Constitution lets states basically govern their own elections, including for federal office. So when you're voting for president in your local state, your state is deciding how you're going to vote. Is it mail in? Do you have the right to do an absentee ballot? Do you have to have an excuse to do an absentee ballot? Congress can regulate federal elections under that Elections Clause when they deem they need to. There's something called Help America Vote Act. And I'm sure everybody's familiar with the National Voter Registration Act, which encourages voter registration. So where we are now is that different states have different rules about mail in and absentee voting. Because of the pandemic, a lot more states are changing their laws to allow more mail in and absentee voting

Tom Dunlap chats with Rob Wray, founder of Blue Star, a senior care technology company, Lisa Roden, owner of Shadow House Media Company, and Aimee McKinney, CMO of Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig. Topics include what Blue Star does, the legality of content creation, and legal advice for new entrepreneurs.  

Listen to today's Minute as we talk about a new rule passed by the labor department last Friday. The new rule revises the definition of healthcare providers that are exempted from the Families First Coronavirus Response Act requirement that was passed back in March. The requirement required any business with less than 500 workers to give up to two weeks of paid sick leave to employees affected by the virus and 10 weeks of partially paid family leave for any working parents to care for children whose school or daycare is closed to COVID-19. The Department of Labor has narrowed the rules and it now includes more people once again. The two big categories that are now included for those workers are any worker who provides diagnostic services, preventative services, treatment services, or other services that are integrated and necessary to the provision of patient care. So more than just doctors or nurses, this now includes staff members who do things like radiology or possibly even receptionists at a healthcare w

Listen to today's Minute as we look at the puzzling case of the Rubik's Cube. The Rubik's Cube Company brought a lawsuit against the parent of Duncan Toys Company, Flambeau. They asked a court to find that Flambeau infringed their trademark for the Rubik's Cube. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about Epic's Antitrust battle against Apple over Fortnite and developer fees . Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Tom Dunlap chats with Ben Barlow and David Ludwig, both of Dunlap, Bennett & Ludwig, to discuss the dos and don’ts of non-compete agreements. Topics include defining non-competition agreements, COVID & enforcing these clauses and anti-trust criminal statute enforcement.

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about how the coronavirus pandemic could impact commercial real estate and cause issues for subleases. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about a typographical error and font changes that led prosecutors to conclude that a New York man had faked his death to avoid sentencing in two cases. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...