Richard Law Group, Inc., lawyers in Dallas, TX, Texas

Musical Works as Copyright Subject Matter

The copyright law of the United States provides for copyright protection in "musical works, including any accompanying words," which are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Both the lyrics and the musical composition itself are copyrightable expression. Musical works include both original compositions and original arrangements or other new versions of earlier compositions to which new copyrightable authorship has been added. The owner of copyright in a work has the exclusive right to make copies, to prepare derivative works, to sell or distribute copies, and to perform the work publicly. Anyone else wishing to use the work in these ways must have the permission of the author or someone who has derived rights through the author.More...

Patents

A patent is a right granted under federal law that allows the patent owner to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the subject matter of the patent without the inventor's permission for a period of 20 years from the time of the patent application. An activity involving the patented invention that violates that right is said to infringe the patent, for which the patent owner may bring a lawsuit to collect monetary damages and to stop the infringing activity. There are several defenses to patent infringement. One defense that will completely insulate an alleged infringer from liability is patent misuse.More...

The Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002

The Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002 (SWSA) allows the recording industry and small webcasters to negotiate lower webcasting royalty fees. The SWSA empowers SoundExchange, which is the recording industry's royalty collection clearinghouse, to enter into royalty rate agreements with small commercial and all noncommercial webcasters. More...

Patent Law and Collateral Estoppel

In a patent case, under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case. Once a patent has been declared invalid via judicial inquiry, a collateral estoppel barrier is created against further litigation involving the patent, unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that he or she did not have a full and fair chance to litigate the validity of the patent in the prior case. Defendants may be collaterally estopped from contesting issues of infringement and patent validity.More...

Trade Dress Protections

Trade dress is governed by the same set of laws that protect unregistered trademarks. While traditional trademark law protects words or logos, trade dress law protects the total packaging and design of a product. Because trade dress often serves the same function as a trademark or service mark-the identification of goods and services in the marketplace-trade dress can be protected under the federal trademark laws and in some cases registered as a trademark or service mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.More...