Intellectual Property

The newsletter of the ISBA’s Section on Intellectual Property Law

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2025 Articles

Deepfakes in the Courtroom: Problems and Solutions By George Bellas March 2025 “Deepfakes” are altered or completely fabricated AI-generated images, audio, or video, that are also extremely realistic, making them difficult to discern from reality. In a sense, they’re AI’s version of photoshopping. Lawyers need to educate themselves and their firms on what deepfakes are and how to spot them, develop a healthy skepticism of content they encounter, and question its source. Take nothing at face value, and closely scrutinize details of that content to look for anything inconsistent with reality, such as people with more or less than five fingers.
E-Tailer Beware: The Seventh Circuit Clarifies the Framework for Enforceability of Digital E-Commerce Agreements By Daniel H. Shulman & Krishna Akarapu March 2025 The Seventh Circuit engages in an in-depth analysis of online agreements, providing specific guidelines for what makes an online agreement enforceable.
Inherent Federal Court Sanctioning Authority By Jeffrey A. Parness March 2025 In Keyes Law Firm, LLC v. Napoli, (4th Cir. 2024), the court provided primers on the inherent sanctioning authority of federal courts for civil litigation misconduct and on the guidelines for determining related attorney fee awards. In doing so, it recognized that some problematic state court conduct could prompt federal court sanctions and that the fee award norms for such conduct should differ from those employed in many fee-shifting statutes.
Intellectual Improbabilities™ By Daniel Kegan March 2025 Updates on trademarks, copyrights, patents, and much more.
LAWPAC Needs You! March 2025 The Illinois Lawyers’ Political Action Committee (LAWPAC) needs your help to fulfill its mission to support the legislative goals of the ISBA and Illinois’ legal community.
More Copyright Kryptonite for Superman, and Another Famous Character’s IP Rights in the News By Margo Lynn Hablutzel, J.D., LLM, CISSP March 2025 In his world, Superman is often in the news for stopping wars, preventing buildings from falling on people, and taking ill children on world tours. In our world, except for movie box office receipts, the main time Superman is in the news is when copyright and trademark issues arise. So it was earlier this year, when outlets reported on a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by the executor of the estate of Joseph Shuster, one of the creators of the Man of Steel. The lawsuit claimed that DC Comics, DC Entertainment, and others were violating the estate’s foreign copyrights in the character.
PTO Alternative Filing By Daniel Kegan March 2025 This article contains previews of forms from the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).
Public Domain Day 2025 Report By Margo Lynn Hablutzel, J.D., LLM, CISSP March 2025 Public Domain Day began as an informal observance in 2004 and since has become formal recognition of works falling into the public domain due to age. The rule of Public Domain Day is simple: works more than 95 years old (100 years for sound recordings) fall into the public domain and are no longer protectible by copyright.
Queen Anne’s Revenge: Government Copyright Creators and Government Copiers By David C. Brezina March 2025 This article comments only on the availability and publication of government-conducted, contracted, or funded information. Premises predating the writing of the Constitution favor public access to information—consistent with the availability of science to enable better science, as opposed to royal suppression long predating the U.S. Constitution.