A Nikolai & Mersereau associate, Laurie Young, has recently been published in two different online publications.  Laurie was first published in the Minnesota Intellectual Property Law journal, New Matter, in an article entitled “Even Intellectual Property Law Has Fictional Characters.”  This article is a brief study of the difference between trade dress infringement and patent design infringement.  The article is based upon a recent Federal Circuit decision Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v Swissa, Inc.  A copy of this first article can be found at: http://www.mipla.net/ricofiles/newsletters/December2008.pdf. 

Laurie’s second article was published in the William Mitchell College of Law publication Intellectual Property Research Series.  The article is entitled “Trade Dress Law: A Study of Select Countries.”  This article is a brief comparison of trade dress law, as it stood in 2007, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia and Brazil.  The article compares the trade dress laws and court decisions of each of these countries and then comes to a conclusion as to whether global harmonization of trade dress law is ever going to be a possibility.  Along with the article is a video interview of the author discussing some aspects of this paper.  This publication can be found at: http://www.wmitchell.edu/intellectual-property/research-series/default.aspx?page=271.

Jim Nikolai       (612) 392-7302           Jim.Nikolai@nm-iplaw.com