Author Archives: John DiGiacomo

The Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares (Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Possessed by Private Persons) is Mexico’s federal law that allows Mexico’s Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI) to regulate and enforce data privacy and security.   The law, which was […]

Reading labels on various alcohol bottles can be a challenging process, and it looks as though it’s only going to get more difficult in coming years. Last year a federal judge dismissed several claims against Tito’s “Handmade” vodka. Now, craft distillers are taking a stand and voicing their opinion on the authenticity of the market and how “craft” may become a loosely defined term.

China has a strong system in place for ensuring the protection of copyrighted material, often resulting in almost immediate action. The Chinese copyright takedown policies are designed to protect the right of “communication through an information network.” This focuses on a right to make sound and audiovisual recordings available to the public over the Internet.

In 2005, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), a forum for 21 countries in the Pacific Rim that works to establish free trade in the region, published a Privacy Framework to promote the “development of effective privacy protections that avoid barriers to information flows, ensure continued trade, and economic growth in the APEC region.” 

One of the biggest obstacles that can come up in registering a trademark is the potential for a trademark application to be challenged by an outside party. When pending marks have been challenged by a third party, the applicant has the right to defend their own mark for validity, using one of several defenses. These […]

Facebook could be in trouble as a class-action suit against Shutterfly, brought by a Chicago man, is now able to move forward. The claim relates to alleged misuse of biometric data by the company. Facebook uses similar technology to Shutterfly for face…

As soon as an individual expresses an idea, phrase, or some other form of creativity in a tangible medium of expression, it has copyright protection. The United States government makes all works protected, whether registered or not, in order to promote creativity and allow for all original thoughts to be owned by the creators. While […]

The acronym SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” These are often called “SLAPP suits” and have become quite the problem for smaller advocate groups and outspoken individuals. SLAPP suits are technically lawsuits, but they are not filed to win. Rather, they are filed to censor plaintiffs’ critics by scaring defendants into lengthy and […]

Opposition is a legal procedure that allows third parties, who may be worried about confusion with their own trademarks, to question the validity of pending trademarks. There are two main grounds for opposing a pending trademark: absolute and relative.

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (“UDRP”) was created by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) and was introduced in 1999 to create a dispute resolution system for domain name issues. Registrants of domain names enter into contractual agreements with the issuer of the domain name (the “registrar”). Often, part of […]