Are you facing a legal issue?  Have you been sued, or are you wondering about foreclosure?  Did you just have a medical procedure that didn’t turn out as you expected?  Is bankruptcy looming?  What about your family life – are you and your spouse considering divorce?  Do you need to update your will?  Has someone you love been arrested for a DUI? 

These are examples of only some of the most common legal issues.  The fact is we actually deal with the law more than most people think.  More importantly, when we face a legal issue, many of us might not know where to turn for answers.  The legal system can certainly be overwhelming – especially because the consequences are often so grave. 

Since 1994, LawInfo has been providing the public with quality legal resources they can count on.  The idea for the company even came out of the founder’s own legal needs!  How do you find the right attorney?  How do you know the attorneys you contact are in good standing with the state bar association?  What if you want to learn about a legal issue before you talk to a lawyer?  Well, these are the reasons LawInfo was established!  LawInfo has a whole library of information about the most common legal issues including answers to frequently asked questions, articles, legal guides, legal forms, and other information – ALL FREE TO THE PUBLIC!  The really great thing is this – you can also easily find an attorney who will understand your legal needs.  It’s all designed to help the public – help someone find answers they need and find an attorney who can help them. 

Learn more about LawInfo’s Free Legal Resource Center and Find the Right Attorney in your area today!

LawInfo’s Attorney Directory. LawInfo’s Lead Counsel Program provides a simple, convenient, and reliable way to find qualified legal representation you can count on. LawInfo conducts an extensive screening and selection process before attorneys are listed in the directory, including multiple peer recommendations, license certification and in-house verification that the attorneys are in good standing with their state bar associations. 

LawInfo also provides a comprehensive profile for each attorney that outlines their experience, education, areas of practice, fees, and perhaps most importantly, their general philosophy of practicing law. Every attorney has taken a pledge to communicate regularly with you, provide an estimate of the time and cost that may be involved for your case, and provide you with a clear, fair, written agreement that spells out how they will handle your legal matter and how you will be charged. For more information see www.lawinfo.com.

Personal Referrals. Asking someone who has been in a similar situation to the one you’re facing may yield some good recommendations.  Do your friends, family members, co-workers or employers know of any attorneys who’ve dealt with this kind of thing?  How was their experience?  Did they like their attorney?  Were they satisfied with the outcome?  Did their attorney do a good job for them?   After you’ve spoken to a handful of people, you may come away with several referrals.  You might take your inquiries out into the community as well – don’t be afraid to ask teachers, doctors, social workers, ministers or other lawyers in your community for the name of an attorney.

Certified Lawyer Referral Services. State Bar associations may have a certified lawyer referral service program. This type of service refers potential clients to program attorneys after interviewing them to determine details of the situation. (There is usually a small charge for the initial consultation with a lawyer.)

Advertisements. Many law firms advertise in the Yellow Pages, newspapers or other local publications in your area.  However, the ads may only give you basic information such as firm name, address, and practice areas, which unfortunately isn’t much help when it comes to figuring out if the attorney will be the right fit for your situation.

Public Interest Groups. Non-profit public interest organizations, such as groups concerned with civil liberties or the environment, may be able to help.  These groups may have staff attorneys who might be able to handle your individual case, while others provide legal help to groups of people. For example, they might help you and your neighbors convince your city council to install a traffic light at a busy intersection.

Free Legal Aid or Pro Bono Lawyers. While many attorneys may offer free consultations, most private attorneys charge a fee for their advice and representation.  However, there may be free legal aid agencies or low-income legal clinics that may be able to help you with your legal issue if you simply can not afford an attorney.  Some private attorneys may even take your case on a “pro bono” basis, which means the fees (or a portion of the fees) may be waived. 

Dispute Resolution Programs. Many communities have programs that can help you and another person “mediate” or work out problems instead of going to trial.

Prepaid Legal Services Plans. Similar to medical insurance, this “legal insurance” may cover the kind of legal work you need. Typically, the premiums you pay entitle you to a certain amount of a lawyer’s time or to a lawyer’s services at a reduced rate.

Remember: never make a decision about an attorney solely on the basis of someone else’s suggestion. An attorney’s style and personality cannot be entirely gauged by viewing a web site, yellow page ad or a simple phone conversation. Don’t make up your mind about hiring an attorney until you’ve met with them, discussed your case, and decided that you feel comfortable working with them. The bottom line is that there are many, many attorneys; you just need the “right” one.

Fan Fiction is the genre of literary works written by fans that add to a storyline or characters created by someone else.  Though fan fiction has exploded on the Internet it started decades ago and became popular in Star Trek centered science fiction magazines.  One of the more popular genres today is the Harry Potter series of stories.  Not surprisingly since these books are the highest selling novels of all time there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Harry Potter fan fiction sites on the internet.  Some websites themselves state they have thousand of stories written by fans.

Some authors, including Potter author J.K Rowling, encourage fan fiction as long as the stories are free.  Because the Internet allows anyone to post anything at little or no cost fan fiction has exploded without causing most fan fiction writers to worry about being sued because of a commercial use.  Once a fan fiction author attempts to make money on their stories however they may be crossing over into copyright infringement.

Steve Vander Ark started The Harry Potter Lexicon as a Potter fan site and it grew into an encyclopedic collection as more books were written.  The site contains Potter storylines, characters and themes, as well as original commentary from him and other website participants.  Rowling herself even sent the website an award for contributing to the Harry Potter world.  Now that Vander Ark and publisher RDR Books plan to sell the Lexicon as a book they are being sued for copyright infringement.

The Copyright is found in the Constitution and grants the author of a copyrighted work the exclusive right to profit from the work.  There is no question that Vander Ark’s Lexicon copies Rowling’s protected works, it is being promoted as an encyclopedia and if it did not copy the works it would not be worth much.  However, the Copyright was also created to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” so unauthorized copying is allowed for purposes such as commentary, criticism, review, teaching or news reporting.  Thus Vander Ark must raise a defense that proves the copying falls under one of these purposes.
 
To aid in determining what is a fair copy and what is not Congress created the “Fair Use” doctrine.  The rule lists four factors which the courts may look at to determine whether the copying was fair.  These four factors cover the intended purpose of the secondary work, the nature of the original work, the amount and significance of the copied portion, and whether the secondary work affects the market for the copyrighted work.  In general, a non-commercial use of copied material has a greater chance of being found a fair use than a commercial use does.

Another key concept in copyright infringement which should be highly important to fan fiction writers is “transformative”.  Does the work transform the original work into a separate work or does it merely copy and repackage it?  Time and effort though does not equal transformative, the Supreme Court ruled a while ago that the “Sweat of the Brow” doctrine is irrelevant in copyright law.  In looking to see if it was transformative a court will look at what Vander Ark did to the copied work.  Either the quantity or quality of Vander Ark’s original contribution must be able to outweigh the original material he copied.

Many works of fan fiction are transformative because they take the existing characters and add to them or change them, as well as continuing the story from where the original author left off.  In Harry Potter fan fiction for example, some of the stories involve the characters being gay or Harry teaming up with Malfoy or Lord Voldemort.  Other areas of fan fiction take the original characters and put them in alternate worlds.  These works may be seen as adding to the author’s creation and not merely copying it.  Outside of fan fiction, transformation is an important element for musicians who sample lyrics or music from other artists’ songs.

Whichever way this case is decided it will surely have a ripple effect on the exploding world of fan fiction.  If Rowling wins, fans may be afraid that posting any story may lead to a lawsuit .  While if Vander Ark wins we may see more fans turn their fandom into a business, potentially dissuading authors from creating new works.

It’s official. Downloading music for free is illegal. At least, sometimes it’s illegal. A 12-person jury recently sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in deciding Jammie Thomas should be liable for copyright infringement. The jury ordered Thomas to pay the record companies $220,000 for sharing copyrighted music online.

The RIAA has been fighting a good fight since online music downloading became popular, but the legality of online music sharing hasn’t always been clear. In 1999 when Napster revolutionized the industry by making it easy for people to upload and download music on the internet, most people had barely even heard of downloading music online let alone understood the legality of it. It was easy, it was free, and it was popular. People started doing it. While the RIAA immediately claimed it was illegal, they went after Napster as the wrongdoer. To make matters worse, the RIAA lost its first lawsuit against Napster. This only furthered the confusion in the average consumer’s mind about the legality of online music sharing. Downloading music on the internet for free just exploded. It was easy, it was free, and it was everywhere. The legal issues were debated as well as the philosophical issues. This was one of those classic situations of law and society trying to catch up with technology.

Since they were losing on the legal side, the music industry launched a major campaign to educate people that free music downloads were illegal. The industry also got on the bandwagon and “legal” music downloading sites like iTunes were developed. Within months of iTunes launch in April 2003, iTunes had sold millions of songs on the internet. “Legal” music downloading had finally “arrived.” On parallel tracks, the music industry changed its legal strategy and started suing the music fans themselves for illegally sharing copyrighted music online.

Fast-forward to 2007 and Jammie Thomas is found liable for having shared music online. Even if the RIAA should have won, is it right for Jammie Thomas to have to pay $220,000 for sharing 25 songs back in February of 2005? What were most of us doing back then? Do you know anyone who was using free file sharing sites like Kazaa and Limewire? Sure, people had been shifting over to paid downloads with sites like iTunes. But, the peer-to-peer music sharing had already had several years lead time. People were familiar with it and they liked it. Moreover, during the years the file-sharing model had been supported by growing forces such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others. The debate about whether music sharing was illegal had grown into whether it should be illegal, and whether there were other technological alternatives available. Jammie Thomas was just the only person willing to stand up for it.

Nevertheless, the RIAA won the battle. There is now legal precedent that a consumer can be held liable for sharing copyrighted music online. The key to the music industry’s success, however, was not the legal issue in my mind. The real reason they won is because they responded to the demand for downloading music online. The majority of people wanted the ease of downloading music online and the ability to select only certain songs more than just simply wanting to get free music. Once the music industry gave the public this solution, they could more easily win the argument in the court of public opinion that free online music sharing was illegal. That gave them a jury pool that they didn’t have previously.

To find more information about copyright law or intellectual property law, feel free to visit LawInfo’s Legal Resource center at: http://www.lawinfo.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/Client.consumer.

Keywords associated with this article: copyright, copyright law, intellectual property attorneys.

Would you be liable for selling (or making, using or advertising) an entire device when only one of its components is patented? Perhaps of more practical concern to business owners is whether you would have to pay money to someone who owns a patent on only one part of the device or system, but not the entire device.

In other words, is a patent owner entitled to royalties or lost profits on solely the patented component of a piece of equipment, or can the patent owner be entitled to lost profits or a royalty on the equipment itself?

The answer: it depends on the circumstances of each case (which means that it is at least possible for a patent owner to be entitled to money damages for sales of entire devices/systems when only one component is patented). Also known as the “entire market value rule” or apportionment, this determination is made on a case-by-case basis depending upon certain factors.

Some of these factors include:

• whether the sale of the whole device is highly dependent upon the sale of the component.

• whether the patent-related feature is the basis for customer demand.

• whether the unpatented components must function together with the patented component in some manner so as to produce a desired end product or result.

• whether the unpatented and patented components are physically part of the same machine.

These factors give both patent owners and accused infringers much to argue about (and, quite passionately too when money is on the line).

The entire market value rule should also be carefully considered by patent owners and applicants, particularly by potential applicants who are unsure of whether or not to file a patent application that would only cover one component or feature of a larger system. Consult with your patent attorney to see if patenting such component or feature might at least give you a reasonable basis for arguing entitlement to sales of the entire device.

Is it laziness or necessity that is the mother of invention? I think it is both. For years I have been blow-drying my hair, and for years I have been looking for a something that would hold my blow dryer in an upright position while it was still on.

I knew what I was looking for and I started my search. Nothing. So for years this little idea just sat on the back burner of my brain. It wasn’t until I was watching my teenage daughter drying her hair that prompted me to act on my idea. What my invention is doesn’t really matter for the purpose of this article. What is of importance is the process that I had to go through to get my idea from the back burner of my brain to the front.

I started hunting for this particular kind of holder in all the beauty supply stores and always came out empty. “Sorry,” the employees would say. “I know what your looking for and we have people come in all the time and ask for that, but we don’t carry anything like what you want.” Sound familiar?

Next stop: the Internet. After spending countless hours searching an answer, I thought to myself, “since I can’t find one, I might as well invent one. Next a trip to the local craft store coupled with several unsuccessful prototypes and voila! I got it and it worked perfectly. It was such a simple idea, I was sure that someone else had already thought of it. But just what if no one else had? Could I get a patent on my little invention?

I knew that it worked, and I knew that there was a need so I started doing my homework. I went on the internet to do some research. I did some calculations as to how many blow dryers were out there and the possibilities were over whelming. I started getting very excited! I knew I had something! I could feel it in my gut. But what do I do next?

For me, my invention became an obsession. I thought about it when I was driving, when I was at the beauty salon watching stylists blow dry hair…another market! At my kids sports games…at the grocery store…everywhere I looked I would see people using my invention. By day, I was constantly making notes about my ideas – anything and everything that popped into my head, I wrote it down. At night I dreamt about it. It had taken on a life of its own and I was my invention’s servant.

I began asking friends and relatives for the names of patent attorneys and began contacting them and setting up appointments. I met with them all. One name that was referred to me was Attorney Steven B. Leavitt. I checked out his website www.YouInventIt.com and after reading about him and his firm, I made the first contact.

I spoke on the phone several times to his staff, submitted an Information Disclosure Form, was advised to move on and have a limited patent search performed and then I scheduled a face-to-face meeting. His fees were right in line with the other patent attorneys even a bit lower in many cases. As we spoke further during that first meeting, I knew I had found my patent attorney. It was a connection that I felt and I just knew that he was the kind of person that I could work with and that he just “got it.” He had the right kind of experience (was a patent examiner for almost 4 years), he was eager, and he too thought that I had a unique idea.

I have never attempted to invent anything before, but because of my experience with Steven and his team, I have the bug! I know I can do it. Steven and Jillian, his office manager, have explained every step of the patent process to me – fee schedules, what to expect next, what I need to do and when I need to do it, they always answer all of my questions, and keep me informed of everything that is going on concerning my patent. I have never had any surprises as to the process or the costs. I am excited as to what the future holds. I LOVE being an inventor!

Steven Leavitt has fourteen years of combined experience in the technology and law fields. Attorney Steven Leavitt and Jillian Freed host an interactive Internet radio show about intellectual property law and answer questions from budding inventors. If you would like advertising information or would like to be a guest on the show, call 1-877-279-3003.

The practice violates state laws that prohibit false advertising and deceptive business practices, Spitzer’s office said in a press release. Intermix stock was down more than 18 percent to $3.93 in morning trading on the American Stock Exchange.

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Is “spyware” a form of deceptive advertising or a useful marketing tool for companies? Share comments below. Need an intellectual property expert? For more information and resources on intellectual property, click here.

Time Trax develops and sells innovative digital recording technology that records broadcasts from Sirius and XM satellite radio to capture broadcasts as individual labeled files for later personal use.

The amicus brief submitted to the court was signed by ten companies potentially affected by the ruling and asks the Court to refrain from assigning liability for product use to its manufacturer based on an immeasurable definition of �primary use.� A victory for Grokster would largely open the gates for continued innovation in this field.

Time Trax and the other participating companies argue in the brief that technology innovation is important to economic growth and that the legal uncertainty of MGM�s petition would stifle that innovation as companies may move slowly due to litigation fears. It also proposes that the foundation of MGM�s claims regarding potential copyright infringement by users of these technologies is extremely difficult to assess.

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Other areas of litigation involving intellectual property rights include but are not limited to biotechnology and organic chemistry, chemical and materials engineering, information security, communication, construction and electronic commerce. For more information on intellectual property attorneys visit the online legal resource center.