August 2022 - Blog | Trademarkmaldives | IP Law Firm in Maldives

Usain Bolt Moves to File Trademark Application for His Signature Victory Pose

More often than not, sportspersons have their signature victory poses, which they break out after a memorable point of their career, like Gareth Bale’s heart sign that he makes with his fingers and Lionel Messi pointing both fingers towards the heavens. Perhaps in the world, one of the most recognizable poses for the victory celebration belongs to Usain Bolt. The athletics icon has recently filed a Trademark Application for a logo showing his signature victory celebration pose. The retired Jamaican sprinter submitted the trademark application in question with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last week.

Mr. Bolt is known worldwide for his signature victory move in which he leans back and gestures to the sky. He routinely struck the pose after setting world records and winning gold medals. He still holds world records for 100m and 200m, which makes him the fastest man in history.

The logo filed by Usain Bolt for obtaining Trademark Protection depicts the silhouette of a man in a unique pose with one arm bent and pointing to the head and the other arm raised and pointing upwards. According to the Trademark Filing, Mr. Bolt intends to use the logo on sports bars and restaurants and items including shoes, jewelry, and clothes.

As per a Washington DC-based Trademark Attorney, Mr. Josh Gerben, it makes utmost sense for Mr. Bolt to expand his business empire since he has now retired from the racing world. He further mentioned that the silhouette of Mr. Bolt’s victory pose is widely recognized across the globe. He feels that the Trademark Registration in question would enable the athletics icon to offer the items listed in the trademark application himself or license the exclusive right to use the trademark to third parties.

It was at the 2017 World Championships in London when the eight-time Olympic gold medalist retired from athletics. He could only manage to win a bronze medal in his penultimate race, the men’s 100m, before pulling up injured just as he began to hit the top speed at his final event, the 4*100m relay.

When Mr. Bolt was asked if he would consider returning to racing, he said that too many people retire and come back to the game only to make it worse or to shame themselves, and he wouldn’t ever be one of those people. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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YouTube must Face Lawsuits from Artists over Copyright Protection

A federal court in San Francisco has recently rejected YouTube LLC’s request to dismiss a contentious lawsuit filed by a group of content creators who believe that the American online social media and video sharing platform safeguards the interests of only big copyright holders such as music labels and major studios.

A United States district judge, James Donato, stated that YouTube couldn’t prove why the court should dismiss the lawsuit filed by ordinary copyright holders, led by Maria Schneider (Grammy-winning composer), at such an early stage of the case.

The attorneys for YouTube and its parent company Google didn’t respond to any comment immediately. Also, the attorneys for the plaintiffs didn’t respond to the request for comment.

In support of small copyright holders, Schneider sued the video-streaming giant in 2020 by arguing that the platform safeguards only big copyright holders from Copyright Infringement while allowing pirated content and material from others to draw in online users. According to the said group of small copyright holders, only major companies out there have access to YouTube’s advanced Content ID System to search for infringing content and block it automatically, while individual creators, on the other hand, are left out in the cold.

Last year, YouTube raised several arguments to dismiss the lawsuit in question. It told the court that the said group of small copyright holders had not recognized all copyright-protected content they were suing over. As per YouTube, the plaintiffs claimed the right to add new copyright to the lawsuit whenever they felt like it, thereby making their claims a moving target. YouTube even stated the group couldn’t prove that it owned some copyright-protected content at issue and failed to register others before suing.

Donato recently said that YouTube’s arguments were unavailing. He further mentioned that the lawsuit recognizes specific works whose copyright YouTube allegedly violated, and it was enough to give the video-streaming giant a fair notice of the claims.

Donato even dismissed YouTube’s arguments concerning the said group’s alleged failure to prove Copyright Registration and ownership. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Google Sues Sonos Alleging Patent Infringement Once Again

The American multinational technology company, Google, is again suing Sonos (an American developer and manufacturer of audio products) by alleging Patent Infringement. It seems to be a never-ending legal fight series between the two tech companies in question. The two new lawsuits filed by Google focus on multiple patents involving keyword detection, charging using technologies invented by Google, and figuring out what speaker from a group should respond to the keyword.

Both the lawsuits have been filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California. As per a report, Google has accused Sonos of violating seven of its patents on the products, including Sonos One, Arc, Beam, Move, and Roam.

Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, said in a recent statement delivered that instead of competing based on innovation and product quality, Sonos has decided to compete in the court of law and initiated a misleading and aggressive campaign against Google’s products, that too at the expense of their shared customers. He further said that Google prefers innovation over litigation; however, Sonos’ actions have left the company with no choice other than to defend its technology and challenge Sonos’ clear and continued infringement of its patents.

The search engine giant, according to Castañeda, has plans to take these complaints against Sonos to the US International Trade Commission in the coming future. It shall ask the Commission to impose a ban on any product infringing upon the seven patents of Google mentioned in the lawsuits filed.

In the documents submitted with the lawsuits filed, Google has targeted the recently launched Sonos voice assistant by saying that it owns the patents for enabling the voice assistant technology and offering improvements to the durability, reliability, and efficiency of voice-controlled and battery-powered devices and Sonos is using them without seeking its permission.

According to Google, Sonos has recently come up with its Sonos Voice Control feature, which controls its products in a power-efficient way by using ‘hotwords’ and manages the battery charging of its products – with the help of technologies invented by Google.

Sonos, in response, said that all this is Google’s arm-twisting tactic against it for criticizing the search engine giant’s monopolistic methods and ways.

The Chief Legal Officer of Sonos, Eddie Lazarus, said that Google has previously sued Sonos globally, and Sonos has emerged victoriously in every decided case. He further said that the courts have repeatedly valid Sonos’ claims as per which Google is infringing upon its core patented smart speaker technology. According to him, the new lawsuits filed by Google are an intimidation tactic for retaliating against Sonos for speaking out against the search engine giant’s monopolistic practices. He even mentioned that Google is avoiding paying Sonos a fair royalty for the near around 200 patents it is presently infringing upon and grinding down a smaller competitor whose innovations and inventions it has misappropriated. Lazarus firmly believes that Google shall not succeed in the said two lawsuits.

For quite a while now, both Sonos and Google have been in a state of quarrelsome disagreement about wireless speaker tech patents. Sonos achieved a massive victory earlier this year when the US Trade Commission stated that Google did infringe upon Sonos’ patents about casting and group speaker controls. Consequently, Google had to remove some functionality – such as a single group volume control for a set of speakers – from its offerings.

A California judge, quite recently, decided in favor of the search engine giant by canceling a Sonos patent concerning transferring the playback queue of tracks from one speaker to another. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Indian Government Plans to Fund 10k Patents from Educational Institutes Every Year

According to a top official’s recent statement, the Indian Government shall soon come up with a scheme to fund 10k Patent Applications from educational institutes every year. This move’s ultimate aim is to motivate and encourage more students and faculty members to safeguard their Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) well. Furthermore, as per many officials, the scheme shall help the higher education institutions of India to improve their rankings worldwide by performing well in the domain of research and development.

The Chairperson of the University Grants Commission (UGC), M Jagadesh Kumar, said that the scheme in question would help the students of higher education institutions and faculty members seek funding from the Indian Government to patent their innovations and inventions. He further added that around 10k patent applications would be funded by the Commission every year.

Mr. Kumar said that as part of the scheme – the higher education regulator would invite students and faculty members from colleges and universities to submit their patent applications. He mentioned that in their university system, the major focus is on publishing papers; however, the ecosystem today has changed, due to which there is a dire need to protect Intellectual Property (IP). According to Mr. Kumar, the upcoming scheme would encourage the students and faculty members to go for patenting.

The Chairperson of IPRs at the Delhi University, AK Prasad, said in a recent statement delivered that the move to institutionalize funding for patents is now welcome, which shall help evaluate the commercial value of patents and also lead to the commercialization of more patents.

Filing patent applications can undoubtedly be a costly affair. The cost of filing a patent application lies between Rs. 10k and Rs. 15k in India; however, in countries such as the United States, the cost of safeguarding innovations in the form of patents can run into lacs.

According to Mr. Prasad, filing patents is less of a problem than the maintenance that comes into the picture after the patent grant. He said that a patent requires continuous input of money the moment it gets filed as the owner has to pay against every inquiry and revision. He further mentioned that once the patent gets published, it requires a maintenance fee for twenty years and that maintenance fee is a big issue in India’s patent system.

Let’s say you have a project and file its patent application today. Now let us assume that tomorrow the project gets over. In such a scenario, you can’t maintain the patent. Now that is where the scheme in question shall prove to be beneficial. According to Mr. Prasad, the UGC shall cover patent maintenance under the proposed scheme.

For quite a while, the education ministry has been encouraging students and faculty members in higher education institutions across the country to patent their innovations and inventions. In May 2022, the Minister of Education and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the Government of India, Dharmendra Pradhan, said in a seminar organized at the Delhi University that the times are now changing, and the citizens of India aren’t being able to patent their innovations. In this matter, he suggested that Delhi University could begin a short-term diploma course on the patent grant process.

Although there has been an upward trend of patenting in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) over the past few years, other higher education institutions in the nation are still catching up.

According to Mr. Kumar, the upcoming amendments in the Ph.D. regulations would also recommend students and faculty members file patent applications for their innovations and inventions. He also mentioned that while the UGC is putting an end to the mandatory requirement of publishing research papers in peer-reviewed journals for submitting the thesis, they strongly recommend that students and faculty members patent their innovations. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com