#intellectual-property

#intellectual-property

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced plans to sell Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Studios and streaming service HBO Max to Netflix, following a bidding war that also ended with a hostile takeover bid by Paramount. The planned sale would create a mammoth streaming and production giant with intellectual property rights to beloved franchises including Batman and Harry Potter. It's also sure to draw scrutiny from antitrust enforcers at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

No doubt Netflix is the default streaming service,

It is significant that the new Paramount regime's first move was to prise Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer away from Netflix. And Netflix, of course, have made their billions by upending the traditional pitch-session-to-cinema pipeline that had sustained the film industry for decades. They have signed up legions of the classiest directors, hogged nearly all the audience-friendly documentaries and premiered one water-cooler series after another.

Jeff Bezos last month went public with his new AI firm, which is currently being called Project Prometheus. The effort had been in development for a while, but is still relatively secretive. There's no website and only a sparse LinkedIn page describing itself as "AI for the physical economy." The $6.2-billion startup may be facing lots of competition from other AI companies, including giants like Microsoft and OpenAI.

Earlier this year, Bungie found itself in the center of an unexpectedplagiarism scandal. The studio's upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, was found to have included work lifted from online artist Antireal without her knowledge or consent. Bungie fessed up and apologized, claiming it was an accident. Now, five months after the controversy, the artist, Antireal, has posted on X stating that the " Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction."

The eight-episode series, titled "The Hunt" (Traqués in French), had been set to premiere on Apple TV next Wednesday, December 3, with a two-episode launch followed by weekly installments through the end of the month. But then last week, Apple quietly removed all the trailers, listings, and other promotional materials for the show from its app and website without explanation.

Samsung Display had an ongoing three-year legal battle against BOE over trade secrets theft and patent infringements related to OLED tech, and according to a new report from Yonhap News, the two sides have settled their dispute. According to the report, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued an official statement confirming that the case has been suspended. While details of the withdrawal were not disclosed,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in Halicki v. Carroll Shelby Licensing, a case in which Denice Shakarian Halicki, widow of the creator of the "Gone in 60 Seconds" film franchise sought review of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision that held the car character "Eleanor," a customized Ford Mustang, was not entitled to copyright protection.

OpenAI's generative AI platform doesn't have many fans in the creative community, and it seems you can count Trey Stone and Matt Parker among them. The South Park duo largely center this week's episode around the AI video platform, with a plot in which Butters ignites a school-wide scandal after seeking revenge on his ex-girlfriend, Red, by using Sora to generate a video of her farting and getting urinated on by Santa.

Despite the AI boom, influencer brand deals are largely being written without clauses related to AI, intellectual property and copyright, which could leave creators and brands exposed, IP lawyers say. At least five creators (ranging in follower size and content type) Digiday spoke with confirmed no such clauses have been added to their brand deals this year. Those clauses could include usage rights limiting a brand's ability to use a creator's synthetic name, image and likeness, or curbing creators' AI tool usage in creative assets without disclosing use.

What's the point in a trademark if it costs so much to defend it? We did everything by the book to protect our brand, but the system isn't set up to support smaller businesses when this kind of thing happens.

The tools they are building are being used across the production cycle. Some, like Moonvalley, are enhancing special effects. Others are promising to help with marketing, content distribution, and content discovery. It's a challenging time for Hollywood. Budgets generally aren't what they used to be, and studios know they need to do what they can to make projects faster and cheaper. Enter AI.

On this week's episode, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels get into the news of Quince dodging claims from Ugg's parent, Deckers Brands, that it unlawfully copied two of its best-selling styles. Next, they discuss the announcement from cosmetics company E.l.f that it will be offering live shopping on streaming service Twitch, and the implications for the potential resurgence of streaming in social commerce.

The University of Akron School of Law's Intellectual Property Policy Institute (IPPI) is now accepting applications for the 2026-2027 Thomas Edison Innovation Law & Policy Fellowship-a year-long, non-resident program supporting rigorous scholarship on intellectual property, creativity, and innovation law. Now entering its twelfth year, the Edison Fellowship brings together a small group of U.S. scholars for three intensive, invitation-only roundtables with senior commentators including Professors John Duffy, Erika Lietzan, Michael Risch, and Mark Schultz.

This is an unauthorized use of my performance of 'Danger Zone.' Nobody asked me for my permission, which I would have denied, and I request that my recording on this video is removed immediately. I can't imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us. Too many people are trying to tear us apart, and we need to find new ways to come together.

The U.S. patent system is facing challenges from many stakeholders, including from groups that believe a weak patent system will result in lower drug prices and more widely available treatments. Such a system would have the opposite effect: fewer treatments being developed due to less research dollars spent. Research and development, and subsequently new drug products, will not occur without a meaningful patent system to provide a level of certainty that investments can be recovered.