02/01/07 IP News

Here's the rundown on the latest in IP news:

• Leo Stoller -- the man known for his claims of trademark infringement against so many well-known brands -- is being sued by Google for false advertising under the Lanham Act, unfair competition, and racketeering under RICO; the 222-page complaint, no doubt, means that Google wants to put Stoller up as a scarecrow. -- Roylance, Abrams, Berdo, and Goodman, LLP
  
• A Canadian national -- originally from China -- is being charged with the theft of U.S. military trade secrets, stolen allegedly for the benefit of China, Malaysia, and Thailand. -- Inside ICE
• The Chicago Auto Show is threatening to sue the Auto Show SHUTDOWN Festival -- a festival that celebrates bicycles and raises awareness of global warming -- for being one giant trademark infringement; EFF cries parody. -- EFF
• The European trademark office has ruled that Google cannot register "Gmail" as a trademark across the whole of Europe, seeing as a German man allegedly patented the name years before Google's mail system came about; resultingly, the mail service will continue to be called Gmail virtually everywhere but in Germany and the U.K., where it is called "Google Mail." -- CNet News
• Now that Vietnam has joined the WTO, it has strived to bring its protection and regulation of intellectual property rights up to treaty standards, and it has subsequently seen a precipitous jump in trademark applications. -- Viet Nam News
• In iPhone news, Cisco has agreed to extend the time Apple has to respond to Cisco's lawsuit so that the two can return to the negotiating table. -- Canada.com
• Belarus credits its current boom in economic growth to its recent intellectual property development and WIPO cooperation. -- The National Center of Legal Information of the Republic of Belarus
• The United States, U.K., Germany, France, and Japan are the top five most intellectual-property-friendly countries, according to a recent study by the International Chamber of Commerce; the 10 worse -- in order from most friendly to least -- are China, Russia, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Turkey, and then the Ukraine in dead last. -- The New Anatolian
• GEMA -- a German version of the RIAA on steroids -- is going after MySpace and YouTube for copyright violations, and Europe doesn't have much in the way of safe harbor provisions. -- NewTeeVee.com
• Microsoft won a civil suit against the Canadian company, Inter-Plus, for the maximium allowed damages of $500,000. After twice catching Inter-Plus with counterfeit goods, twice seizing those goods, and then twice refusing to press charges, Microsoft had enough of the RCMP's handling of the problem, took custody of the counterfeit items seized by the RCMP, and then initiated this suit. While $500,000 is a small prize for Microsoft, it also allegedly sought an injunction to keep Inter-Plus out of the market, and the judge declined this motion. -- p2pnet.net
• The Canadian Music Creators Coalition, following a year of 120% growth in digital music sales and 10% overall music growth in Canada, is now arguing that "because music sales have never been greater, there is no need to push for legislation that makes it easier for record companies to file lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers and make it illegal to bypass DRM." -- Slyck News
• At a recent symposium, the deputy director general of WIPO envisioned a point in the not-too-distant future wherein all, worldwide, IP applications were funneled through a single registration which would then register the IP in all of the world. -- ag-IP-news
• The real economies created by the sale of a game character's virtual property or the sale of the character itself is dead, at least on eBay. -- bloggingstocks.com
• Google's top 10 most searched terms this year were 4/5ths trademarks: Bebo, MySpace, “World Cup,” Metacafe, Radioblog, Wikipedia, “video“, Rebelde, Mininova, and “wiki." -- CircleID