This afternoon I diligently sat through the 2008 year in review seminar of trademark and copyright law for Oregon lawyers. (As lawyer seminars go, this one is actually slightly tolerable.) One of the most interesting subjects discussed was the ongoing proposal to expand the Internet via the creation of new top level domains (TLDs) by ICANN. (more…)
ICANN, the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which coordinates the Internet’s domain addressing system, is currently working on a plan to expand the present number of domains. The Internet has 21 generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as .com, .net, etc. ICANN’s proposed plan will expand that number significantly by creating entirely new domains (more…)
Trademarks are often one of the most valuable pieces of intellectual property a business can own since they identify and set apart a business from its competitors. Many businesses view trademarks simply as a label or emblem (think McDonald’s golden arches), but in reality they can come in all sorts of forms. Federal law defines trademarks as “any word, name, symbol or device or any combination thereof….” Over time that definition has been found to even include color: in 1985 a federal court found that Owens-Corning’s color pink for insulation had obtained trademark status.