Resolving Intellectual Property Rights Order Description Assignment 2: Resolving Intellectual Property Rights Due Week 10 and worth 220 points Note: The companies mentioned herein are merely hypothetical organizations with characteristics developed to enable students to respond to the assignment. You may create and / or make all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of this assignment if those assumptions are consistent with the facts presented. Do not make assumptions which obviate the need to conduct a legal analysis of the issues. In this assignment, you will act as the fictional character of Betty Fuller, Head of Marketing at Simply Green Products, while you draft a memorandum to the company President. In this memorandum, you must explain how you would resolve the legal issues discussed in the scenario. Scenario Simply Green Products (SGP) is a $10 million company that produces biodegradable packing materials that orchards use in the Shenandoah Valley to transport their apples, peaches, and pears nationwide. Biodegradable materials are more eco-friendly because they break down into the environment. Such packing materials are marketed under the name “SafePac,” which is heavily advertised in trade journals. Simply Green Products have had the name “SafePac” imprinted on all of their packing material since 2008. Although SGP never filed for either state or federal trademark protection, following the advice of one of their summer interns, they did register the domain name “SafePac.com.” With the movement toward more eco-friendly agricultural production, the fact that such packing materials are biodegradable provides a primary marketing advantage over non-biodegradable competitors. Despite the fact that SGP is highly eco-friendly, it is not particularly technologically advanced. SGP mostly advertises in trade journals and magazines, with most orders coming via the mail or phone orders. Shep Howard, President of SGP realizes his company needs to increase its marketing presence and recently hired Betty Fuller, a recent Strayer graduate with an MBA, to be the new Director of Marketing for the company. Ms. Fuller has been charged with bringing SGP’s marketing plan into the 21st century. In preparing the new Marketing plan, Ms. Fuller, quickly noticed that although SGP owned Safepac.com, the name SafePac, itself had never been registered with the Trademark and Patent Office. Accordingly, one of the first things Ms. Fuller did was start the registration process. When searching the USPTO office database to see if a mark has already been filed she found the following entries shown below: Trademarks She immediately realized SGP had a problem. Ms. Fuller did some additional research and found that a company called Safe Choices, Inc. uses the SafePack name to market an emergency weather kit in the form of a backpack; and had received a federal registration for the mark from the Patent and Trademark Office in 2002. This backpack is sold both online at SafePack.com and in sporting goods stores nationwide. Note: “A complete search is one that will uncover all similar marks, not just those that are identical. In this regard, searching for trademark availability is not the same as searching to register a domain name. A domain name search may focus on exact or “dead on” hits, with no consideration given to similar names or use with related products and services. Basically, a domain address is either available or it is not. The trademark process, on the other hand, is more complex. As part of the overall examination process, the USPTO will search its database to determine whether registration must be refused because a similar mark is already registered for related products or services (i.e., even identical marks may co-exist if used on goods or services not considered to be related in any way). Please note that the USPTO does not offer advisory opinions on the availability of a mark prior to filing of an actual application.” http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database Legal Issues Ms. Fuller contacted Shep Howard to discuss SGP intellectual property problems and to devise a plan on how to proceed. In her meeting with Howard Ms. Fuller explained the legal issues to Howard as follows: SGP has been using the product name SafePac since 2008 but never trademarked or otherwise registered that named. A company called Safe Choice had registered the names SafePack and SafePacs back in 2002 and those names were listed live marks by the USPTO. Arguably, SafePac may be confusingly similar to Safe Choices marks to preclude registration of the marks. Moreover, use of the name may “constitutes a false designation of origin which is likely to confuse customers as to the source of the goods”. However, safe Choice and SGP are in different product lines and, therefore, arguably are not competitors, a requirement for infringement. The intellectual property issue at hand involves the Lanham Act. Even if the USPTO finds that SGP’s proposed mark and Safe Choices marks are not similar or that SGP and Safe Choice are not competitors, registrations may nonetheless be denied under the provisions of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c). For additional information, see Duvall, S.A. (2007). The Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006: balanced protection for famous brands. The Trademark Reporter, 97(6), 1252-1285. Since we purchased the domain name SafePac.com, Safe Choice may attempt to accuse SGP of cybersquatting and try to have that domain name transferred to their control. Any such action would proceed under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). Finally, she outlined her plan on how to proceed with the marketing plan based on how she though the legal issues would be resolved. Mr. Howard then asked Ms. Fuller to put the information she had just given him in memo form. Assignment Requirements In the role of Betty Fuller, prepare the memorandum requested by Shep Howard. The memo should be three to four (3-4) pages in which you: Decide whether or not SGP can register SafePac as a trademark given the issues discussed in “legal issue: a”. Decide whether or not the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 would be violated if the USTPO granted SGP a trademark on SafePac. Decide whether or not the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act would be violated by SGP’s use of safepac.com. Describe how your resolution would affect the marketing options available to the company. Use at least three (3) quality academic or legal resources in this assignment, such as a government Website, Law school Websites, Restatements of laws, and other treatises of Law. Your paper must include internal citations indicating the sources of your legal statements. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic or legal resources. Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements: Typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length. Include a reference page. Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.
06 September, 2015
Final research essay Order Description Assignment Instructions The final research essay will be the results of a Congressional report on the People's Republic of China and assess the CI analysis used in the report to develop the report's conclusions. People's Republic of China (PRC) Threat Analysis Value: This Assignment counts for 40% of your APUS Final Course Grade for this course. Deadline: Sunday, End of week 8. Objective: This assignment, in accordance with undergraduate academic endeavors, provides an opportunity to evaluate assimilation of course topics, and sharpen and evaluate students' research & critical thinking skills. The assignment is driven & tested by a combination of course materials and external self-led research (depending upon essay[s] selected); analyzed and presented in essay(s) form. Type: This assignment consists of a research analysis paper approximately five to seven pages in length, double-spaced (This page count does not include a title page, abstract (optional), table of contents (optional), or bibliography page(s). The source material should result primarily from self-led external research of scholarly articles. In addition, the course required reading materials may be used. The paper should have five to seven pages of content which are the written results of your research efforts. Topic: The final research essay for this course is to review the results of the Cox Committee investigation by Congress into the threat posed by the PRC. This report was prepared by the House of Representatives with input from the Intelligence Community (IC) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It represents an outstanding counterintelligence analysis product. The complete report is posted under the Resources in the "Cox Report - US Natl Scty and Mil-Commercial Concerns with PRC - 1999" folder. (As a backup, the Govt Printing Office link for this report is https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/content-detail.html) Your assignment starts with a review of the Cox Report (start early -- it is long) to determine the descriptive, explanatory, and predictive analytical methods used by Cox Committee, IC, and CRS to develop the report's conclusions on the PRC's intelligence threat. Your assignment is to describe the various analytical methods used. Your description of the methods used should be supported by examples from the Cox Report. Finally, your assignment must include a discussion of the policy and operational decisions made as a result of this counterintelligence analysis of the PRC's threat. The purpose of this assignment is for you to understand how counterintelligence analysis is applied. Note: Per the original course author, this course was designed as follow-on to the INTL300 Research Methods. Thus, you were supposed to bring the knowledge of the three analytical methods mentioned above with you from taking INTL300 earlier/previously. However, if you are not familiar with these methods, I am posting in the class' Resources a CIA reference document titled, "Tradecraft Primer - Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis," dated Apr 2009. Please feel free to use the three previously mentioned methods in the assignment, if you are familiar with them, or any one or combination of methods from this primer. Format: Your paper requires a Title page, citations, and a bibliography. Your paper should be in the Chicago/Turabian format (https://www.apus.edu/Online-Library/tutorials/chicago.htm) -- Also see the Turabian Quick Guide in the Resources. In-text parenthetic citations are required.
06 September, 2015
meddy news Order Description You also may access the Maddy Daily online by following these steps: 1. Go to www.maddyinstitute.com 2. Go to “News” on the bar at the top of the page. 3. In the drop-down menu, select “Maddy Daily.” 4. Select the day that you would like to read. For each paper, you should cut and paste the brief information on the article in the Maddy Daily at the top of the paper. You will then write one page on the article, relating the article to concepts from the class. Here is a brief list of questions you MAY wish to address in the one-pager. You are NOT required to address each of these questions in your one-pager – they are only offered as ideas for issues you may want to include. • What is the primary level of government that is responsible for this issue? • What other levels of government are involved, and what, if any, are their roles? (This will address federalism.) • What budget-related issues are involved – how much does it cost, will this action cut or increase funding for the program/issue, and other such budget-related questions? • Has legislation been proposed to address this issue? If so, at what level of government – federal, state, local? • What is your position on this issue? (This will address political ideologies.) • What do you believe influenced you – parents, peers, educators, or other sources – in coming to this position on the issue? (This will address political socialization.) • What interest groups, if any, are involved in addressing this issue? Which interest groups are in support of your position, and which interest groups are opposed? (This will address interest groups.) • What are some of the arguments against your position and how would you respond to those arguments? A paper with less than a full page for each article is not acceptable and will receive no more than half-credit. A full page consists of text only. Headers/footers, titles, name/date, and the like are NOT calculated in the full page requirement. Hand-written work will NOT be accepted. NOTE: The writing assignment should be one full page double-spaced with one-inch margins on all sides. Please use Times News Roman 12-point font. You also should use appropriate grammar and spelling. A writing assignment that does not meet minimum requirements is not acceptable and will receive half-credit. A full page consists of text only; headers/footers, titles, name/date, and the like are NOT calculated in the full page requirement. *I will upload the files chapter 1,2,3 to get some information about my course**
06 September, 2015
