IP ├ IP???: The Logic of Election Year Legal Disputes Over Proprietary Intangibles

James P. Flynn, Managing Director of the Firm and Member in the Litigation and Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practices, in the firm’s Newark office, authored an article in ILN IP Insider, titled “IP ├ IP???: The Logic of Election Year Legal Disputes Over Proprietary Intangibles.”

Following is an excerpt:

Title? Typo? Cryptic code? Equation?

Really it is a combination of three of the four. In other words, it is not a typo (You can look elsewhere in this piece for those).

One key to understanding the reference above is the mathematical logic symbol ├, which is known as the “’turnstile’…because of its resemblance to a typical turnstile if viewed from above. It is also referred to as tee.” It is meant to mean “yields” or “entails,” and here the familiar initials “IP” are used to the right of the turnstile with question marks as an indication of “intellectual property” (that “umbrella term for a set of intangible assets or assets that are not physical in nature”) and the questions it raises. The “IP” to the left of the turnstile is not tautological—it stands for “interesting politics,” leaving the tail of the title to be a logic language shorthand for “Interesting Politics Yield Intellectual Property Questions.” 

And how true that is these days. For instance, we await a US Supreme Court decision in Vidal v. Elster, a case argued November 1, 2023, and that this author has written about before (here and here) concerning whether the refusal to register a trademark (Trump Too Small) under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(c) when the mark contains criticism of a government official or public figure violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. But, since we already hit that topic and can write more about it once the Vidal decision comes down, let’s see what else is out there. 

We have a great mix of other issues as the political season heats up. This ranges from concerns about “deep fakes” like the Faux Biden robocall to shallower AI-driven authorized messages like we are seeing in connection with India’s election. It also includes the recurring dust-ups between musical artists and politicians concerning songs played at campaign rallies. Beyond that, we have a copyright fight between a former Congressman and a late-night talk show host. So we can jump into these issues now.