Legally Insightful

Jurisdiction: Australia; .au domains. Reviewed 27 October 2026. Shakespeare’s rose might smell just as sweet under another name, but a website’s domain can raise very practical branding and eligibility questions. This article concerns Australian .au domain licensing; it is separate from trade mark and business-name registration. Who does what? auDA administers the .au rules. Registrants normally deal with an accredited registrar to register, renew and manage a licence; auDA is not simply the retail registrar for every com.au name. A domain is an internet address, and licensing it does not itself grant trade mark rights. The 2021 rules are no longer a future proposal The licensing rules discussed in the original article came into effect on 12 April 2021. Australian presence is a longstanding requirement, with different eligibility and allocation rules for different namespaces. Where a registrant relies on an Australian trade mark to establish presence for com.au or net.au, the rules req...

Jurisdiction: United States; historical case commentary. Reviewed 27 October 2026. The Tiffany/Costco dispute is a useful example of the difference between overturning summary judgment and finally deciding that conduct is lawful. It concerns trade marks and alleged counterfeiting, not the loss of copyright through a generic brand name. The label at issue Costco used “Tiffany” in descriptions of rings. Tiffany challenged that use, while Costco contended that the term described a setting and raised a descriptive fair-use defence. The legal question required attention to the actual signs, consumer understanding and context. What the appeal decided On 17 August 2020, the Second Circuit vacated the judgment against Costco and remanded for further proceedings. It found factual questions suitable for trial concerning confusion, good faith and the defence. It did not conclusively hold that no reasonable jury could ever find for Tiffany, or cancel the Tiffany brand. Later development Reuters re...

Jurisdiction: United States; historical case commentary. Reviewed 27 October 2026. Leah Bassett’s case concerned artworks visible in films made at her rented home. The legal point is about the artworks and the particular uses, not a rule that a property owner automatically owns copyright in everything filmed inside a house. Separate the stages of the case The May 2020 opinion considered several claims and required more precise evidence concerning appearances of the works. A later August 2020 decision was reported as granting summary judgment on copyright liability. Liability and the amount of damages are different questions: this article does not report a verified final damages amount. Originality and useful objects US law can protect original artistic expression while treating functional features differently. Decorating an object does not automatically make all of the object’s function copyrightable. A room also may contain works by different owners. Fair use and incidental appearance...