Stephen M. Kramarsky

March 18, 2008 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes that the Second Circuit will soon address directly whether the sale of trademarked company names as advertising keywords constitutes trademark infringement. While every decision from a court within the Second Circuit has held that it is not infringement, that holding is directly contrary to the decisions of essentially every other federal court on virtually identical facts.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

10 minute read

July 19, 2011 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes: The concept of a "proprietary" news story seems to be at odds with our modern, information-dense society, but the "hot news" tort survives, providing a separate right of action for the unauthorized commercial use of material that cannot otherwise be the basis for an infringement action under the Federal Copyright Act. The precise scope of that tort, however, is a subject ripe for debate, as evidenced by the Second Circuit's recent decision.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

11 minute read

March 23, 2011 | Legaltech News

Some contracts may be ignored when push comes to shove before a court. For technology lawyers, this can happen when they try to retain key employees or protect trade secrets and intellectual property through non-compete clauses. A Southern District of New York decision denying IBM a preliminary injunction to enforce a non-compete agreement offers a good look at why.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

11 minute read

November 28, 2006 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes that over the past few months, several more courts have weighed in on the trademark issues associated with the sale of keywords by search engines such as Yahoo! and Google, and New York is increasingly an outlier.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

13 minute read

March 25, 2005 | Law.com

Any lawyer who represents high-tech clients has a bag of tools to use when trying to safeguard intellectual property. Patents are useful in some instances, of course, but they're rarely adequate to cover all the technologies a client may consider valuable and proprietary. Therefore, attorneys often turn to other areas of the law for protection: the law of trade secrets, the contractual protections of non-disclosure agreements, and torts such as unjust enrichment and unfair competition.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

11 minute read

January 17, 2008 | Legaltech News

The globalization of Web business models creates thorny issues for determining personal jurisdiction. Attorney Stephen Kramarsky untangles the complexity of "Web presence" for jurisdictional purposes in light of recent federal cases in the Southern District of New York.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

12 minute read

November 17, 2009 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes: Copyright protection in the United States is broad, but not all-encompassing. The exclusive rights of copyright holders are set out in ©106 of the Copyright Act, and anything that falls outside the scope of those enumerated exclusive rights, or within any of the many exceptions found in the act, is beyond the scope of protection. This is a fairly straightforward statement of the law but it is easy to forget, and copyright holders often come to the conclusion that any use of their copyrighted material entitles them to a payment. As new technologies and new uses arise, that conclusion is not always a good fit with the law and the courts must step in to determine the boundaries of the statute.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

12 minute read

May 26, 2009 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes that there are a host "borderline" actions that might or might not "pertain to intellectual property" under state law. In the absence of some clarification from Congress about the intended scope of the term "intellectual property," it seems likely that this area will continue to be a fertile ground for litigation, he says.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

12 minute read

July 15, 2008 | New York Law Journal

Stephen M. Kramarsky, a member of Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, writes that one way for employers to avoid keeping their documents out of the hands of competitors is to assert statutory claims arising from the unauthorized access to the computer system. Although there is a federal law providing civil penalties and injunctive relief for unauthorized computer access there is not a specific analogous New York state statute. There is, however, an analogous New Jersey statute, and recently a New York court considered its extraterritorial application in New York cases.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

13 minute read

March 31, 2006 | Law.com

One of the great challenges for intellectual property law in recent years has been the increasing prevalence of digital content. In some cases, Congress has stepped in to create or modify rights or remedies relating to digital content. In others, the courts have had to try, with varying success, to apply old laws to new paradigms. While some of these issues really are new, the increased importance of these laws in today's economy exposes flaws that have been present for a long time.

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

12 minute read