With the ever increasing popularity of virtual worlds such as Second Life, trademark owners need to be aware of both the opportunities and challenges that their brands may face in these newly emerging markets. As a trademark owner, if you choose to conduct business in the virtual world, be aware that all of the attendant concerns of brand reputation and disparagement you face in the real world, such as counterfeiting, copyright infringement and misappropriation of property, translate into the virtual space. Read the rest of this entry »

Internet domain name registration is a first-come, first-served process. Because of the simplicity and relative low cost of registering a domain, trafficking in domain names has been commonplace since the inception of the Internet. It began with domain name hijacking. In its simplest form, hijacking is the registration of a domain name or names which incorporate the company name or personal name of a famous company or person and then offering to sell or, in fact, selling the domain to the rightful owner. This behavior, known as “cybersquatting,” was effectively outlawed by enactment of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 (ACPA). Read the rest of this entry »

In light of a recent New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division decision, it is possible for an employer to be held liable to third parties harmed by its employee if the employer has reason to know that the employee is engaging in Internet conduct that is potentially harmful, yet fails to take remedial action.  Read the rest of this entry »

Independent computer programmers and software developers are increasingly turning to open source code in writing new computer programs. Therefore, there is a growing need for both programmers and developers as well as companies who contract for their services and distribute their software to understand both copyright law and the GNU - General Public License (“GPL”) which governs open source code. Read the rest of this entry »

While initially conceived in 1984 to punish hackers and safe guard classified financial and credit information relating to government and financial institutions, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (the “CFAA”) has evolved over the past two decades to reflect emerging technology in the areas it was created to protect. Specifically, the CFAA affords employers civil remedies which can be applied to workplace and unfair competition disputes by (1) providing employers with federal court jurisdiction over such disputes and (2) allowing employers to bring a CFAA claim without proving that the information fraudulently acquired was a trade secret, constituted confidential or proprietary information or breached an employment contract, confidentiality agreement or non-compete agreement. Read the rest of this entry »

Increasingly, anonymous bloggers are posting damaging and sometimes libelous comments directed against others on the Internet. However, identifying an anonymous blogger is not easy. Federal law requires an ISP to notify a blogger upon a demand for his identify. Courts typically become involved when an Internet Service Provider (ISP) files suit to ask relief from the demand or the blogger files a John Doe suit to maintain his anonymity. Read the rest of this entry »

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted to protect copyright owners from various forms of infringement in the digital age. It is perhaps most famous for its electronic copyright protection provisions. Those provisions make it unlawful to circumvent technological measures, e.g., encryption, that a copyright owner may use to prevent unauthorized access to music, software, movies and other works of authorship that are stored in an electronic medium.
A lesser known but very significant feature of the DMCA is its ability to be used to thwart online copyright infringement. In the absence of protective measures, information stored in electronic media may be easily reproduced. This exposes Internet Web sites as easy prey to potential infringers. Fortunately, the DMCA has a mechanism specifically designed to address this problem. Read the rest of this entry »

In the early days of the Internet, enterprising and oftentimes unscrupulous persons would reserve domain names that were the same as or similar to the trade names and trademarks of others and then offer to sell those domains, at high fees, to their “rightful” owners. This practice was known as “cybersquatting.” The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 (ACPA) was enacted to combat such activity. Read the rest of this entry »

When a person dies, attention must be paid to the decedent’s intangible assets, such as Internet assets, as well as his/her tangible assets. Email accounts, online gaming property, Internet based bank and credit/debit accounts are all intangible property of the decedent’s estate. Care must be taken to assure that such property is recognized, categorized, quantified and properly administered.