It is ironic that it is illegal to open accounts in your children's' names and go into debt.  It is identity theft and you can do jail time.

In contrast, you can steal much more from your children by simply electing politicians who will continue to run up the national debt.  Currently, our national debt is just shy of $40,000.00 per person.   A family of four owes $160,000.

So how are we dealing with our debt?  The same way that we got into our current mess.  This coming year the federal budget will be $3.83 Trillion.   That works our to just shy of $12,500.00 per person, or $50,000.00 for a family of four.  (The medium household income in the U.S. for 2007-2008 was $51,233). 

So what will we do when the interest we pay on the federal debt exceeds the total revenues collected by the federal government (an event that could happen relatively soon if interest rates spike)?  Simple, we will borrow more and pass the debt onto our children.  We will have bankrupted the wealthiest nation on earth.  We should be so proud.

        

It looks like Apple has made yet another mess in its trademark department.  A few years ago Apple launched a revolutionary new telephone, only to get mired down in the fact that Cisco already had a registration for IPHONE for computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks.  Apparently Apple was able to work out a deal and get its own registration.

Having already been through that mess, you think Apple would have thought through the IPAD a little more carefully.  The problem is that Fujitsu Transactions Solutions already has a pending trademark for IPAD and has use going back more than 8 years.  Of course, Apple has filed for an extension to oppose Fujitsu's mark.  Apple's likely position will be that it owns anything with an I in front of it.  The odds of winning on that ground seem pretty slim.  Thus, Apple will probably pay off another company.  One wonders why not put a little more effort on the front end to naming your products so you avoid trademark conflicts.

        

The record setting patent awards continue.  Recently a Federal judge ordered Abbott Laboratories to pay $176 M in interest to Centocor (a division of Johnson & Johnson) for sales of the drug Humira.  That was on top of the $1.67 billion awarded for the infringement of Centocor's patent .  A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking serious money.

        

Google has lost a major round in its attempt to put digitized copies of books on the internet.  Somehow Google thought it could overcome the copyrights of the authors whose works it was copying.  A French court, however, recently disagreed, ordering Google to stop scanning French books and awarding $430,000 to copyright owners who sue Google for infringement.  While the idea of having books on the internet is a great idea that will spread knowledge, Google does not get a free pass regarding infringing others copyrights.

        

There has been a fair amount of press on the intention of the FTC to penalize bloggers for not disclosing renumeration (money, free product, etc.,) that they receive when the write posts endorsing products.  When you think about it, disclosure makes sense.  Do we really want to have friends tell us things that are in reality just a commercial.  The $11,000 potential fine, on the other hand, may be a tad on the excessive.

While the disclosure requirements on blogs has caught the media's attention, the new FTC rules actually go much further.  If you advertise, you probably will want to make sure you aren't walking into a hornet's nest.

Everyone has seen the ads for the guy who went from a 250 lb. marshmallow to a ripped Men's Fitness model in a couple of months.  (Much as most of us would like - it usually does not happen that way).  If you look carefully, the advertisement will almost always have a disclaimer "results not typical."   One of the big changes is that the safe harbor disclaimer will no longer be allowed.  Now you will have to identify what typical results are.  So if the your spokesperson is a freak of nature who lost 50 times your customers' average of 2 lbs, you are going to have to disclose that typical results are two pounds.

The disclosure requirement is also going to extend to peer to peer advertising.  If you are are giving award points to a million teenagers who proselyte their friends for you, be aware that those "spontaneous" endorsements have to be disclosed as advertising.  Yes, it kind of ruins the effect of peer to peer advertising when people realize that you are paying people to be their friends.  However, failure to do so may bring down the ire of the FTC.  "Hey Johny, that new video game I bought rocks - This has been a paid commercial for Jimbo's new video game."

Another interesting change in the rules is that the endorser may now also be liable for violations of the rules.  Thus, if you make your living endorsing people's products, what you do not say may be just as important as what you do.

What to do - read the rules and make sure that your latest ad campaign won't get you a visit from the FTC.

Here is the FTC Announcement

Here is the Revised Endorsement Guide 

        

It is a tough economy and it is understandable that people might stretch a little.  However, if you are being completely dishonest, it will not help your prospects in the long term.   In the last week I have several calls from people trying to get my business.  Some were selling things and others were trying to get my firm to sponsor events.  In each case the caller made a misrepresentation in an attempt to speak with me.  A couple claimed that they were returning my call or that I had expressed interest in their product.  No one at my firm was familiar with the company and I certainly had no interest in their product.  The moment I realized that the person calling had lied to get through to me, the chance that I would ever do business with the company - for any product or service - went to zero.

Likewise, someone left me a voice mail indicating that we had called about sponsoring their event.  I was unaware of the event and probably would not have been interested even if I had been.  However, the mere fact that the caller lied to try and get a return telephone call told me not to do business with them again.

I always wonder why someone thinks I would do business with them if our first encounter is based on a lie.   It may work in the short term by getting some confused individual to listen.  However, in the long term it creates a lot of people who are no longer potential customers.

        

Most people dislike being criticized.  Sure, we should stop people from engaging in slander or libel, but how about when they are criticizing poor work?  Do you have the right to avoid criticism.

Apparently RALPH LAUREN believes that it does.  Recently RALPH LAUREN ran an add for its clothing.  Apparently, the model it hired did not look quite anorexic enough, so they used a little PHOTOSHOP magic to show a woman you can wrap your hand around.


One could go on about the fashion industry and whether it is responsible for the problems of anorexia and bulemia in today's young women.  After all, your typical teenager cannot use PHOTOSHOP to get down to 75 or 80 lbs.  Boing Boing, however, simply made fun of the poor use of PHOTOSHOP.

Apparently RALPH LAUREN did not appreciate the criticism.   They had their New York attorneys send a take down letter claiming copyright infringement.  Fortunately Boing Boing did not cave.

Using the copyright laws to try and shut down criticism has two major draw backs.  First, the copyright laws have a fair use exception that allows copying - and use for criticism is about as clear of a fair use as it gets.  Second, it risks the "Streisand effect" - named for the singing Diva who tried to stop publication of a photograph that included her beachfront home.  Not only didn't she succeed, the photo got far more attention than it would have.

When someone has done something you do not like on line, you need to ask yourself a few questions before you send cease and desist letters or take down letters.  First - is what they are doing really violating your rights?  If not, threatening legal action based on intellectual property only makes you look stupid.  Second - even if they are violating your rights, is the cure worse than the disease?   In other words, will threatening them merely result in more publicity of the improper post, etc.,  A prime example of the Streisand effect is DirectBuy's attempt to shut down dissent which only backfired, as I discussed a couple of years ago.   Their cease and desist letter made DirectBuy and their attorneys look stupid.

Protecting your rights is important.  Thinking before you act is more important.

        

Last night I was reading the paper and came across an article that indicated a majority of people in the U.S. are in favor of taxing millionaires at 50%.  Wow, have we really become such a jealous country that we want to take half of what people earn.  While many have the attitude - so what they are rich, it makes you wonder who is going want to take the risk to start new ventures.  If you fail - sucks to be you.  If you succeed, we will take half.  (I am unsure whether than included state taxes, so maybe the total is more like 55-60%).

The great irony is that on the same page there was also an article about how New York is not receiving the money it expected from its new tax on millionaires.  It seems that at least some of the big earners have decided to move out of state and resettle where taxes are lower.   Many high income people already own second homes in other states so the switch will not be hard.   Look for the number of millionaires in Florida, Wyoming and Nevada to increase.

While gouging the other guy always sounds better, it comes at a cost.  One of the people they interviewed who had moved out of New York relocated her company to Florida.  Not only does New York not get her tax money anymore, it also lost a number of jobs that the people in Florida were more than happy to fill.

The same thing can happen on a global scale.  There is a reason that countries/states like the Bahamas, Monaco and others have a large number of very wealthy from other countries.   If you raise taxes to high, the golden goose will fly away.

        

Today I have been attending the Utah Cyber Symposium.  Many thanks to Perry Clegg, David Langeland, and Ben Holt , the officers of the Cyberlaw Section of the Utah State Bar, for putting together a top notch program.

Unlike the typical continuing legal education, the Cyber Symposium was designed for both lawyers and business people alike.

The morning speaker was Paul Alan Levy.  Mr. Levy is well known nationally as a public interest attorney for his work with Public Citizen.  He has argued four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and submitted briefs in 7 others.  He has the odd distinction of having each case decided on 9-0 decisions.  Mr. Levy addressed issues involving Immunity of those who allow the posting of content under 47 U.S.C. 230 - i.e. can you be sued for defamatory (or other improper) statements by others on your website.   His outline can be a great guide on how to keep your company out of trouble.

Chris Johnson of SCI received the Cyber Pioneer Award
 
Other speakers included:
Brock Blake of Funding Universe, speaking about negotiating high tech funding transactions;
Pete Ashdown of Xmission, discussed the technical contrainsts of legal regulation;
Lee Livingston of Fibernet Corp. discussed PCI Compliance;
Douglas R. Bush of Arent Fox in Washington, D.C. discussed the expansion of top level domain names.;
Steve Spencer of One to One Interactive (Twelve Horses)  discussed social media ettiquette;
David Bradford of Fusion-io discussed networking;
Paulo Patente of Di Blasi Parente Vaz e Dias & Associados discussed ten tips for doing business in Brazil.

A number of other speakers also presented.   The handouts for the speakers are available at the Cyber Law Website

        

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has recently given a little bit of relief to trademark owners.  For a number of years the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was canceling trademark registrations for "fraud" if any of the information was inaccurate.  The most dangerous was the date of first use of the mark.  This led many to claim a later date than for which they had actual use just to protect against potentially invalidating their registration.   In In re Bose Corporation the Federal Circuit found that the TTAB had been misapplying the standard.  Not only do you have to show that the information is inaccurate, you have to show that there was an intent to deceive.  The Federal Circuit's analysis makes more sense and will give a little breathing room in case of inadvertent errors.