Mark Phillip Walters's Answers

Bootleg movies

It is illegal to import DVDs that you know or reasonably should know are bootleg copies. You most likely won't be stopped at the border if you buy one, but your chances of being stopped go up with the number you purchase. Customs officials routinely stop large shipments into the US of suspicious DVDs. Under customs law, the importer has the burden to prove that the shipment is legitimate. In most cases, the goods are simply destroyed.

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Patent attorney requirements

While you don't need to hire a patent attorney or patent agent, I grossly understate reality by saying it is good idea. Only registered patent attorneys and "agents" (scientists or engineers that have passed the USPTO Bar Exam) are allowed to practice before the PTO on behalf of inventors. Practice before the PTO requires a thorough understanding of both substantive patent law (Title 35 of the US Code) and a multitude of ever-changing rules (most of which are codified in Title 37 of the U.S....

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Clothing design

In answering your question, I’ll first assume that the dress you seek to protect is not new in terms of how it functions, i.e., the dress is not designed to provide some new and useful result, like providing a new therapeutic benefit or other utility. I’ll also assume that your methods for making the dress are generally no different from those used by other prior dress makers. In short, I’ll assume that you seek only to protect how the dress looks as opposed to how the dress is worn or how it...

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Invention at work

The short answer to your question is no, provided that you were not hired specifically to come up with this invention (from your question, I’m assuming you were not hired to invent this process). In the United States, the default rule is that an inventor owns her inventions, even if they were made during her employment or through the use of company resources. There are two very important exceptions to this rule. First, if the employer’s resources were used to develop the invention to any...

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Trademark protection

I'll assume when you say "trademarked" you are talking about registration, either under federal or state law. First, it should be clarified that one does not need to register their mark in order to obtain common law, or even federal trademark rights. In the United States, rights in a trademark are established by use. Trademark use occurs when you adopt a word, phrase, drawing, picture, or just about anything, and use it to identify your goods or services. The dangers of not going through the...

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Old books published online

The book will need to be pretty old to be in the public domain. If the work was published in the United States before 1923, it is in the public domain whether or not it was published with a copyright notice. If it was published in the United States before 1977 without a copyright notice, it is in the public domain. If it was published before March 1, 1989 but after 1977, without a copyright notice and without subsequent registration, it is in the public domain. Determining copyright...

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Copying movies

While it is perfectly legal to make backup copies of your DVDs, most software available for this is illegal because it violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The vast majority of commercially available DVDs are encrypted with code that must be circumvented through the use of special software. Circumventing encryption code in order to gain access to copyrighted material on a DVD violates the DMCA. The sale of one popular software product used for copying DVDs was enjoined by a...

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Photos of stangers

If your pictures are simply of ordinary people doing ordinary things in public, it is probably okay to sell them. The law gets a little tricky when your photographs arguably invade the privacy of another or where your photographs are used to appropriate the identity of someone (like someone famous). There is no bright line rule telling you when you need someone to sign a release. The most conservative approach here is to get a released signed whenever you can. If your pictures serve some...

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Bootleg movies

While it is perfectly legal to make backup copies of your DVDs, most software available for this is illegal because it violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The vast majority of commercially available DVDs are encrypted with code that must be circumvented through the use of special software. Circumventing encryption code in order to gain access to copyrighted material on a DVD violates the DMCA. The sale of one popular software product used for copying DVDs was enjoined by a...

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Trademark issue of Confusingly Similar

Using your hypothetical, and assuming that both are used in a trademark sense (as opposed to in a descriptive, non-trademark sense), and further assuming that the marks would be used on the same or close goods/services, the prior user would have superior rights regardless of registration status because trademark rights in the US are based on use. Adding the word "exchange" would not seem to change the character of the mark much, the overall commercial impression being WORLD SHOES. That is my...

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