John Duy Tran's Answers

Slogan

Slogans are protectable via U.S. Trademark Law. However, the valuation of any intellectual property (e.g. patents, trademarks, copyrights etc...) is often very difficult and deals with a variety of factors (e.g. strength of mark, size of market, prior relationship between buyer/purchaser, trademark registration validity etc...) A common approach is to attempt to identify similar slogans used in the same market and attempt to determine the value by prior assignment or purchase agreeements. If...

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If I make a t-shirt with a hybrid design of the major league baseball logo, am I infringing on any laws?

Bottom line: if your "hybrid" logo can be found to cause a likelihood of confusion with the MLB logo then you may be liable for trademark infringement. In addition, there are possible grounds of trademark dilution of the MLB logo by your hybrid design. As my other colleagues have stated, you may have a defense of "parody" but it is not clear whether your hybrid logo would qualify under such an exception.

Is it legal for me to resell business contact lists?

In regards solely to the intellectual property issues, there does not seem to be a trade secret issue since the lists were sold to you and contain public information and it does not seem you are binded to any confidentiality agreement. However, the compilation and layout of certain lists have been held protectable as copyrights so you should check the copyright database to see if any registrations may exists on this business contact list. Disclaimer: Please note that this answer does not...

Drawing lessons vs trademarks

I would recommend reviewing the "Fair Use' defense in the copyright act and under the U.S. Trademark laws. Fair Use provides certain limited exceptions to use trademarked and copyrighted information for educational and non-commercial purposes.