Need some good reading material? Here’s a quick recap of the top IP news stories and hot topics in IP we loved diving into this month!
- “Los Angeles restaurateur Andy Nguyen is now planning to open the very first restaurant based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club [NFT collection]. Nguyen hopes to show how the marketing potential of the BAYC and NFTs can translate into the real world with his venture” – Bored Ape Yacht Club Owner Uses IP Ownership Rights to Open Restaurant, Hypebeast
- “The clinic tackles diversity issues in intellectual property in two ways: encouraging more people of color to enter the traditionally white, male intellectual property field and providing legal assistance to people who are underrepresented in inventorship and trademark registration applications.” – Social Justice Meets IP at Howard Law Clinics Tackling Diversity, Bloomberg Law
- “Spotify’s new invention works by determining “one or more early adopters” from its user base and then collecting data from their listening patterns. The system can then predict which artists are more likely to break based on the listening patterns of these early adopters.” – Spotify Just Patented Its Own A&R Technology To Predict Breaking Artists. Should Labels Be Concerned?, Music Business Worldwide
- “Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Intel, Meta, and Microsoft, among others, have employee patent recognition programs. The incentives vary, but these tech giants offer even entry-level employees cash rewards and free access to a team of patent attorneys […] Payouts to inventor-employees typically start at about $500 but might go into the thousands for ascending stages of a patent’s lifecycle.” – Inside Big Tech’s Race to Patent Everything, WIRED
- “In a case examining fair use protection, the Supreme Court will decide if Warhol’s use of a photograph of the musician amounts to copyright infringement or if he transformed the work enough for it to qualify as a new piece.” – Copyright Battle Over Warhol’s Prince Series Headed for Supreme Court, The Hollywood Reporter
Final tidbits: Apple’s fierce sometimes overboard trademark protections; IP legal fight over spinoff of famous Bored Ape NFT character; HBCU grads celebrate billion dollar valuation for Fintech app; opinion piece on ‘Routine’ Patent Assignments
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The Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property, an initiative of the Michelson 20MM Foundation, provides access to empowering IP education for budding inventors and entrepreneurs. Michelson 20MM was founded thanks to the generous support of renowned spinal surgeon Dr. Gary K. Michelson and Alya Michelson. To learn more, visit 20mm.org.