(Patent attorney) The patents in question are continuation patents. Essentially, Nintendo filed a patent application before Palworld was released that disclosed the mechanics Nintendo is patenting now. That original application only included claims covering a subset of the mechanics described in the application. They can continue filing additional applications with new claims that cover the mechanics described entirely in the original application and get the benefit of having the priority date of the original application so long as they meet certain requirements about the timing.
Original application: I invented A, B, C, D, E, and F and want A protected; here’s some $. Follow-up application 1: I want invention B protected, here’s some more $. Follow up application 2: I want C protected, here’s some more $.
Part of the idea behind it is that you don’t have to waste money protecting parts of what you invented that don’t pan out (additional claims cost additional money beyond a certain number of claims). It’s not particularly fair, since you can watch what a competitor does (as Nintendo has done here), and essentially backdate a patent as though you had filed for it before the competitor did their thing.
The terminology can be confusing, but "copyrighted" is often used interchangeably with "registered". Copyright in a work exists from the moment it's the work is created, but it's not "copyrighted" in the sense the judge is using until the work is registered with the Copyright Office. Registration is a requirement to sue for infringement. So a work is protected by copyright as soon as it's created, but it needs to be registered before one can sue for infringement. That can be done after the infringement occurs. For example, if a work is created in 2020 and someone infringes on the copyright beginning in 2021, the work can be registered in 2023 and the creator can sue for the past infringement (though not all of the same remedies are available).
The issue here is that the artists are making broad claims that DeviantArt infringed all of their works (by letting them be used as training data), even though they didn't register all of their works. Only some of the artists that are suing registered their works, and they may not have registered all of the works they are suing over. That's what the first sentence in the next paragraph is about: "[E]ven if plaintiffs narrow their allegations to limit them to Output Images that draw upon Training Images based upon copyrighted images..." The judge didn't misspeak here.
I had an escalation clause in my offer, but I adjusted it so it said something to the effect that the clause would only be in effect for comparable offers. Then I defined comparable offers to be offers that were for the same type of loan with a minimum down payment and deposit amount. I wanted to protect against the buyers getting a higher offer that they were likely to reject on some other basis, but using that higher offer to make me pay more for the house. The downside was that I could be beat out by other legitimate buyers whose escalation clause didn't consider the quality of the offer they were beating. I cared more about not feeling like I was being swindled though. I got the house after about a $10k escalation, and the seller's agent presented the competing offer so I could verify it met the conditions of my escalation clause.
I did this. I was a developer my whole adult life and jumped from that to law school in my 30's. Graduated, become an attorney, decided I wanted to code again after a few years, and became a developer again. By the time I made the decision to switch back, I was out of hands-on development for about the same amount of time as you. I worked on a lot of different things as a developer, so it was hard to pick just one thing to brush up on. I figured I would try to get an interview for something I was interested in, then brush up on whatever tech stack the company was looking for. I applied for a job that required a niche skill I had and was surprised I got a call after my first job application. I got past the HR phone screen and had about a two-week gap to prepare between the HR phone screen and the first technical interview. I was doing well on the technical parts of the interview, but the hiring manager was noticeably checked out the entire time (he even took a phone call during the interview). I got the feeling he didn't review my resume before the interview and was annoyed I got past the initial phone screen since I hadn't coded professionally in years. The team member he had on the interview with him was much more interested and kept the interview going.
A week later, the HR person called back and said the hiring manager was concerned by how long it had been since I was a developer. That's what I expected would be the problem, so I changed strategies. I decided to get my foot in the door and work my way back up to the level I was at before I went to law school. That worked and I got a job that paid way less than my attorney salary and about 25% less than I was making as a developer at my last position (not accounting for inflation). I've enjoyed the job enough that I put "working my back up" on hold.
I don't know your situation and how big a pay cut you're willing to take, but that worked for me. Don't get discouraged, it's definitely possible. I'm "caught up" in my tech stack and feel comfortable enough to interview elsewhere, but I don't want to right now.
Even though it’s a private university, Mayo has a written freedom of expression policy (copy here: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/mayo-clinic-freedom-e...) that grants professors similar rights as those protected by the First Amendment for public university professors. This is typical for private universities. If you’re trying to attract the best faculty, you’re at a disadvantage if your professors are going to be muzzled when compared to public university professors.
There’s a large body of law built up around the First Amendment rights of university professors and public employees more generally. The fact the government is an employer in some cases doesn’t override the fact that it’s still the government and largely prohibited from regulating speech except in narrow circumstances where the First Amendment doesn’t offer protections to anyone (libel, obscenity, and a few other historical exceptions) or where the speech would significantly impact the workplace or learning environment. The latter isn’t a specific test used by the courts, but that’s essentially the spirit of the case law surrounding when the government can regulate the otherwise-protected speech of its employees. For private universities, contracts or even contractual expectations created by policies regarding free speech and academic freedom (like Mayo’s policy) can place similar restrictions on the university being able to act against an employee.
It means they’re claiming common law trademark protection for “Project Catalog” for now, essentially putting other businesses on notice that they’re claiming to own that term in their line of business. There’s no public record of them filing for the mark with the USPTO yet, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t or won’t. Anyone can do that; it’s the ® symbol that can’t be used unless the mark is registered.
While it may seem like a generic term, it’s likely not generic as far as trademarks go.
Unfortunately, this requires the use of immunosuppressive therapy, which is going to make it a non-starter for nearly every diabetic in otherwise reasonably good health.
I had this happen to me a few years ago. The point of the newsletter spam was to try to hide a confirmation e-mail from online order using my account on an online store. The attacker gained access to the my account at the store using a password from an old data breach. They signed up for hundreds of newsletters in the span of a few minutes, then placed an order using the stolen credentials. The confirmation e-mail was buried in a mountain of spam, making it almost impossible to discover that the attacker had placed an order using my account. Fortunately, I hadn’t used that store in ages, so all of the billing info they had on file was out of date and the order was cancelled automatically. Try searching your email for “order” or something similar and see if anything came in during the newsletter bomb.
An IP agreement with an employer typically has the employee assign rights in any IP the employee develops to the employer. That gives the employer ownership of anything the employee personally develops. Creating an LLC wouldn’t change that since the employee is the one creating the IP, not the LLC. If others are involved in the LLC, the LLC could own IP developed by them (assuming they haven’t assigned their rights away to a different company), but not to IP (even IP yet to be developed) already assigned to a different company.
Ideally, the IP agreement with the employer is limited in scope so that the only IP assigned is that which relates to the employer’s products (e.g., a company that develops medical records software might not claim IP rights to a game the employee develops on the weekend). Unfortunately, many employers use overly-broad agreements, so it’s important to review the agreement. Even if the agreement is broad, the employer may be willing to amend it if the employee is working on something unrelated to the employer’s business and the work won’t affect the employee’s performance. Talk to an attorney in your state before you do anything that jeopardizes something of value to you, and definitely talk to an attorney before you concoct a scheme that opens you up to legal problems ;-)
Original application: I invented A, B, C, D, E, and F and want A protected; here’s some $. Follow-up application 1: I want invention B protected, here’s some more $. Follow up application 2: I want C protected, here’s some more $.
Part of the idea behind it is that you don’t have to waste money protecting parts of what you invented that don’t pan out (additional claims cost additional money beyond a certain number of claims). It’s not particularly fair, since you can watch what a competitor does (as Nintendo has done here), and essentially backdate a patent as though you had filed for it before the competitor did their thing.