Blackletter
Episodes
Today, Tom Dunlap and Kurt Klaus of Dunlap, Bennett, and Ludwig chat with Will Gee, the CEO of Balti Virtual about the field and future of augmented and virtual reality. Listen in as they cover topics such as VR and the AR Cloud, the potential future of the industry and what Balti Virtual has learned through business culture, growth and working with some amazing clients.
For today’s Monday Minutes, Tom discusses his recent work with blockchain and NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Blockchain is a specific type of database in which information is stored in chains, as opposed to tables in an Excel spreadsheet. He gives a simplified explanation of how data is stored and encrypted in a blockchain. Bitcoin is the most known type of data stored in a blockchain. Tom touches on why some people prefer bitcoin o...
In a lighter rendition of Monday Minutes, today Tom mentions some of the bloopers and blunders that have happened on Zoom during legal proceedings. By now, many of us have seen the lawyer on Zoom with a kitten face filter, saying “I am not a cat.” Tom shares other instances such as naked attorneys, drinking, meth pipes and more!
For today’s Monday Minutes, Tom discusses Judge Jed Rakoff’s recent book, “Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and Why the Guilty Go Free.” Working in the southern district of New York, Rakoff is an experienced judge who delves into why people are pleading guilty instead of going to trial. The book offers anecdotes and observations on how the legal system and class privilege support this pattern.
Nike filed suit on January 15th, 2021, against an LA-based manufacturing company “La La Land Production & Design Inc.” over supplying fake “Dunk” sneakers. This suit follows one month after Nike Inc. settled a lawsuit against Los Angeles streetwear designer Warren Lotas, who sold the fake Dunk sneakers. La La Land stated it had functioned only as a manufacturer for Warren Lotas and had been indemnified by him against such claim...
In this episode, Tom Dunlap chats with Heinan Landa, President & CEO of Optimal Networks, about how law firms can modernize their use of technology to better meet the changing world's needs. Listen in as they cover topics such as using and adopting technology as a tool, transitioning to new tech, and what etiquette to follow on new technology.
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the law in DC for carrying a handgun and why? Well, because we had the Capitol riots recently and there were more than 70 at the time of this recording and probably now more than 100 are under investigation. It's black letter law in DC, and everybody here knows it. This is DC official code 22-4504.01, which is federal law because Washington DC is still a military district. It sa...
What will happen to the Trump defamation lawsuits once he is not the President? Multiple women have claimed that Trump has sexually assaulted them in the past. But two of them are actually suing the president or the former president for defamation after he's denied those claims. Both cases were stayed because the president's lawyer said he's immune. What happens to that appeal now that he's no longer president and ...
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has decided that a proposed mark incorporating the name “Trump” may not be federally registered as a trademark. Relying on the Lanham Act that doesn't allow registration of any mark that identifies “a particular living individual” without that person’s consent, the TTAB refused to register “Trump Too Small” for use on T-shirts and other apparel.
On this special episode of The Blackletter Podcast, we highlight the best of seasons one through five! Topics include business development and marketing, legal issues in independent film making, political consulting, immigration, corporate law, corporate finance, commercial lending, non-competes, and more.
A company called Harrison/Erickson created the Phillie Phanatic way back in 1984. Harrison/Erickson sold the Phillie Phanatic to the Philadelphia Phillies for $215,000 back in 1984. However, they argue that under a section of the copyright act, they had the right to renegotiate those terms, and have since August of 2019 been in a lawsuit with the Phillies, or one new lawsuit or another since then.
The Phillies of course said they ...
Thousands of people got an email from Airbnb a couple of weeks ago, and they made maybe a $15,000 mistake. At least one man did according to an article by NPR. Airbnb went through its initial public offering, and its stock price more than doubled almost instantly. Now, tons of Airbnb hosts who had received an email a couple of weeks ago offering them a chance to buy stock ahead of the IPO are kicking themselves for missing out and ...
Today a US appeal court is going to hear an appeal challenging the order that blocked the TikTok app from the store. Now that ban at least blocking it entirely from the App Store and blocking the users was stayed by another appeals court judge or a district court judge in September 27th. However, absent some kind of result from this appeal the TikTok app will be blocked.
President Trump empowered the Justice Department to enforce t...
Tom Dunlap chats with Marissa Levin, co-founder of Successful Culture International, 20-year entrepreneur and speaker, on how to facilitate an engaged, inclusive virtual culture. We also discuss the important qualities leaders must implement in order to retain and grow employee trust in these isolating times.
Tiger Lily Ventures, a British company was seeking to name their whiskey Lehman Brothers. The trademark lapsed in the U.S. Register. The Barclays failed to renew the trademark in 2013 and Tiger Lily jumped on top of that and filed a trademark for whiskey and beer using the Lehman Brothers name.
The argument that Barclay's made about the marks was a) they own the marks, b) the marks are famous and c) clearly if Tiger Lily uses ...
Tom Dunlap chats with Mo Bunnell, the founder and CEO of Bunnell Idea Group, about how professionals such as lawyers, doctors and accountants can market themselves and their services. We also discuss his book, The Snowball System, which is a deep exploration of these topics.
Kanye was actually sued over a song called Ultra Light Beam. The plaintiffs were Andrew Green and Shirley Green suing on behalf of their daughter, which in the lawsuit, I assume she's a minor, was identified solely as NG, that's November Golf, and somebody named Andrea Green.
At the beginning of a song by Kanye, there's a small sample from that work, Ultra Light Beam that involves the NG miner and Andrea Green praying ...
Tom Dunlap chats with David Notowitz, of National Center for Audio & Forensics, and David Ludwig, of Dunlap, Bennett and Ludwig, about how much information is stored in digital evidence and why attorneys need to thoroughly analyze video and audio files the way they do other documents. We also discuss what can go wrong if attorneys don’t do their homework with digital evidence.
David Notowitz is the founder and lead audio, vid...
On November 10th, there is a crazy important case that involves a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA. The ACA is the healthcare law that some people call Obamacare. And what's being challenged specifically in this case is something called minimum essential coverage provision. And sometimes you heard it called the individual mandate.
What this minimum essential coverage provision says is that if you don't have...
Today, we're going to talk about the Netflix lawsuit involving the estate of sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series.
The Doyle estate sued Netflix over its making of a film called Enola Holmes. That film is about the 14-year-old fictional sister of Sherlock Holmes. The issue is that most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, at least those published prior to 1923, were found to be out of copyright by another...