Internet Law

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What is Internet Law?
As one of the early adopters of the world wide web, we have seen the concept of Internet law evolve from a novelty to a ubiquitous part of everyone€™s life. Today Internet Law can best be described as a melding of contract law, intellectual property law, private property law, and defamation.

Legal issues often arrive when two or more parties work collectively to create an online presence. Documenting that arrangement is our job. When that online presence involves e-commerce, contract law is involved. When a creative work results, Copyright and/or Trademark law is implicated. When your online rights or reputations are challenged, defamation laws come into play.

Jacobs & Associates can assist you in creating, protecting and exploiting your private property rights.

Trademark / Copyright / Trade Secrets

Trademarks — Servicemarks

Jacobs & Associates is actively engaged in securing trademark and service mark protections for its worldwide client base. We counsel our clients on the feasibility of securing those protections and when appropriate, we prepare and file trademark and service mark applications at the United States Patent & Trademark Office. We defend those applications if they are challenged by the trademark examiners or others.

Copyrights
Jacobs & Associates assists its clients understand the copyright laws. We explain what a work-for-hire€ is and advise when its use is or is not appropriate. When copyright protections are required we file for copyright protection at the Library of Congress to protect our clients’ valuable rights. These rights have come under particular scrutiny in this Internet age, where duplication of a protected work is so easy. Our attorneys have lectured on this topic and write frequently to educate the general public on copyright issues.

Our firm’s expertise and accomplishments in these fields include:

  • Obtaining trademark, servicemark, and copyright protections for numerous clients, and successfully causing infringers to cease and desist.
  • Reconciling the rights among trademark holders and holders of domain names include the so-called cybersquatters.
  • Providing a highly successful strategy for a domain name entrepreneur to maximize the value of his domain name portfolio.
  • Drafting a royalty agreement for a company engaged in online Internet training to establish the standards by which online content providers can assure ownership, distribution rights, copyrights, and traditional intellectual property rights (trademark/copyright) to online Internet content.
  • Negotiating strategic marketing agreements with major online content providers for the provision of online impressions and cooperative cross-marketing of goods and services over the Internet and the parties’ Web sites. This agreement addressed Internet-specific issues such as the creation, maintenance and ownership of Web site content, hyperlinks, Web site aesthetics and functionality; online advertising issues such as quantity, quality and placement of online impressions; brand names; consumer privacy; government regulation, and standard financial and legal terms and conditions.
  • Working with Web site developers, Internet service providers, and communications companies to obtain and protect domain names and Web site content. We are familiar with the Internet’s policies regarding domain name disputes, domain name ownership and sale, trademark infringement, and Lanham Act violations, and have crafted appropriate Web site disclaimers and “click-wrap” licenses to assist online clients to protect their intellectual property and avoid costly disputes.