Week 2 Articles
Sony Entertainment Europe sued for Trivia series trademark violation http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51024 A recent suit against Sony is being filed by California-based Buzztime Entertainment. The Entertainment mogul alleges that the Buzz! series of video games released on the hit Playstation 2 game console violate multiple established trademarks, including electronic trivia games for bars and restaurants. The suit is even trying to cover mobile phones and cable and satellite services. This topic ties into our lecture on trademark and patent. Interestingly enough SCEE’s (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) filing of the “Buzz trademark is not officially registered. From a distance, this case looks to be a trouble spot for Sony, especially without proper releases on the brand. Microsoft hammered with a $2.7 million copyright suit in the Philippines. http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/17/microsoft-hit-with-2-4-million-copyright-suit-in-the-philippine/ In a recent scuffle over intellectual property rights, Microsoft has come under intense fire for the alleged distribution of material Copyrighted by a Philippine college. Even though the material seems to have only benefited professionals, Southeastern college of Pasay City is hammering Microsoft and Microsoft Philippines for 100 million Filipino pesos ($2.4 million) for handing out around 700 CDs in 2005 and 06′ that contained the “SEC Microsoft Office XP Manual. 10′000 copies of the same manual had previously been licensed from the school by the company in 2004, and then retitled for use in a program to train high school teachers. Microsoft zealously denies “distributing additional copies of the curriculum. As we recently discussed in class 5, this case seems to have a focus on privacy issues. Just how students enrolled in 450 here at Bradley are not allowed to distribute lectures, the same case applies for curriculum. Even though Microsoft didn’t put the curriculum up for easy download, they at least have a figure for how many copies got lose. LG and Quanta get into a patent suit arguments http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/scotus-hearing-milestone-lg-v-quanta-patent-suit-arguments/ Tech group LG is arguing that chipsets sold by intel to Quanta utilize unlicensed manufacturing techniques and produce non-Intel components. Also, Quanta apparently owes LG compensation per its original agreement with intel. While this case doesn’t have many details at the moment (is ongoing), this case serves as another supplement to our lecture on patent law. In this case though, a race for patent wasn’t involved at all, and instead involves a group trying to protect its property law proactively. One of the biggest questions at this stage in the case though is when did LG obtain its patent, and whether or not unlicensed manufacturing was/is really practiced by Quanta.
