Featured Articles

Jersey Shore's "The Situation" Becomes SNAFU at Abercrombie

Joe Bahgat
August 18, 2011 12:03

The way things usually work when marketing and advertising cross paths with the TV and film industries, is that the former pays the latter for what's known as product placement — i.e. the advertiser or ad agency pays the TV producer or actor to use/wear/eat a their product during the ordinary...

Law360.com Article: "FCC. . .Could Be F'd Before the High Court"

Joe Bahgat
August 19, 2011 12:54

Shortly after I posted about the FCC's broadcasting indecency policy heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, a senior writer from Law360.com interviewed me for a feature article she was working on in anticipation of the site's new Media & Entertainment section. Ordinarily, I would say thanks, and...

Trademark Protection Isn't Available for 'Merely Descriptive' Marks

Joe Bahgat
March 23, 2011 03:04

Here is an example of a poor judgment with regard to spending money on legal fees. In a nutshell, a popular legal blogsite Lawyerist.com filed suit to invalidate two trademarks registered by another popular legal blogsite, Technolawyer. The trademarks in question are "BigLaw," and "SmallLaw," which...

How To Win Your 2011 March Madness Pool (and not get fired)

Joe Bahgat
March 13, 2011 11:23

Selection Sunday is upon us. For a lot of business owners and department heads, that means the upcoming week will be one of the least productive work weeks of the year, especially since this year, "for the first time ever, every tournament game will be carried live nationally in its entirety...

Bonds Guilty of Obstruction; No Verdict on Perjury Charge

Joe Bahgat
April 15, 2011 04:16

The Barry Bonds verdicts are in. Sort of. The jury found Bonds guilty—not guilty of lying to a grand jury—guilty of one count of obstruction of justice, for allegedly misleading investigators, giving evasive testimony, etc. The jury hung on the other three charges. In our...

Ninth Circuit Gives Green-light to Google AdWords' Use of Competitors' Marks

Joe Bahgat
June 09, 2011 15:03

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently departed from the 30-year-old standard by which federal courts evaluate trademark infringement claims. The issue in that case, Network Automation, Inc. v. Advanced Sys. Concepts, Inc., No. 10-55840 (9th Cir. Mar. 8, 2011), was whether a company...

My 2011 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Joe Bahgat
March 16, 2011 17:00

Recent Articles

The Ravi Verdict: Justice Served or Society's Price of Political Correctness

March 19, 2012 11:27

I don't know what Dan Abrams, Nancy Grace, and Mark Geragos were saying about the Dharun Ravi trial, and I didn't need to know, because I was there. Granted I didn't see the whole trial from opening statements to closing arguments, but I did see direct and cross-examination of most of the key...

Teen Prank Gone Awry: The Case Against Dharun Ravi

March 06, 2012 10:59

I've been fortunate enough that over the past week-and-a-half all of my trials/hearings/court appearances have been at the Middlesex County Courthouse, which is not only one block from my New Brunswick, New Jersey office, but also happens to be the venue for the criminal trial of Dharun Ravi,...

UVA Lacrosse Player Should Appeal

February 27, 2012 14:50

Last week, a Virginia jury found former University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely guilty of murder, but found him not guilty of first-degree murder. I'm not at all surprised by the verdict, and my purpose in posting this follow-up is not to call attention to my original post on the...