Business Law Lecture Notes - Vocabulary

Source Indicators

• Trademark (good): Symbolizes a company that sells physical goods.
• Trade Service (service): Symbolizes a company that sells services (e.g., hair and nail salon).
• Trade Dress (brand image): A distinctive feature of a product that distinguishes it.
• Trade Name (business name): A name given to a product by the manufacturer and cannot be generic.
• Distinctiveness:
  • Generic: A word that describes a good is the same as the good itself (e.g., "beer" for a beer company).
  • Descriptive: Needs a secondary meaning and five years of continuous surveying (e.g., American Airlines – requires proof over time that consumers associate the name with the airline).
  • Suggestive: Hints at what the product is (e.g., Burger King).
  • Arbitrary: A real word, but unrelated to the good (e.g., Apple for computers).
  • Fanciful: A made-up name and logo (e.g., Coca-Cola).
• Fair Use:
  • Comparative Advertising: Using another company's source indicators to compare products.
  • Expressive Works: Using source indicators to further express an artistic idea.
  • Parody: Making fun of someone's brand for a joke.
  • Commentary: Commenting on another brand.
  • Non-Commercial Intended Use: Using a brand's assets without permission.
  • Product/Service Identification: Companies paying other companies to be able to fix their stuff (e.g., Tesla mechanics).
  • Licensing: Paying for the rights of a company.
• Unfair Use:
  • Infringement: Do not have to prove the fame of the company + likely to cause confusion.
  • Dilution: Must prove company fame + likely to dilute or tarnish the brand due to similarities.
  • Counterfeiting: Illegal dupes of something.

Patents

• Utility:
  • Duration: 20 years.
  • Requirements: A new and non-obvious invention.
• Design:
  • Duration: 15 years.
  • Requirements: 100% ornamental; nothing to do with function, like a perfume bottle.
• Application Process: Preparing a detailed specification, filing, undergoing examination, responding to objections before a patent is granted.

Copyright

• Examples: Books, movies, videos.
• Rights: Immediately exist upon creation.
• Unfair Use: Distribution, development of derivative works.
• Fair Use: Non-commercial use, criticism, teaching, or research.
• Duration: Life of the author + 70 years, or 120 years from creation if owned by a publisher.

Trade Secret

• Used For: Customer lists, marketing plans, and development strategies.
• Duration: Indefinitely.

Intentional Torts

• Assault: Threatening with imminent harm.
• Battery: Actually hitting someone.
• False Imprisonment: Holding someone captive without their consent; permissible if reasonable.
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: Making someone feel so bad they have to go to the doctor
  • Public figures: Must prove the person knew something was false and still went through with it.
• Defamation: False statement of fact that is not an opinion.
  • Slander vs. Libel: Slander is in person; libel is online.
  • Slander per se: Super aggressive slander, such as related to sexual life or getting arrested.
  • Public figures: Must prove it was intentional.
• Disparagement of Property: Making false claims about a product or business that makes others not want to buy from them.
• Invasion of Privacy:
  • Appropriation of Identity: Using a famous person in an ad without their permission (e.g., Kylie Jenner on another lip gloss product).
  • False Light: Portraying someone who is against something in a way that suggests they support it (e.g., a gun lover in an anti-gun ad).
  • Intrusion into Individual Affairs: Invading someone’s property without a reasonable excuse.
  • Public Disclosure of Private Facts: Publicly disclosing someone's personal information (e.g., revenge porn).
• Fraudulent Misrepresentation: Misrepresenting something that causes someone to enter a contract.
• Trespass to Real Property: Going on someone's land with the intent to stay.
• Trespass to Personal Property: Going on someone's phone/laptop.
• Conversion: Taking someone's belongings without consent (e.g., taking someone's car).

Wrongful Interference

• Wrongful Interference with Business Relationship: Convincing a company to leave their contract with another company.
• Wrongful Interference with a Contractual Relationship: Diverting customers from another company.

Negligence

• Elements:
  • Duty: The duty somebody has to do something.
  • Breach: Not doing your duty.
  • Causation: Establishing the connection between negligence and the harm suffered.
  • Damages: Economic, non-economic, and punitive.
• Defenses:
  • Comparative Fault: If you had an active role in why you got hurt.
  • Assumption of Risk: You knew there was a reason you would get hurt (e.g., at a baseball game).
  • Contributory Negligence: Government chooses how much you were involved and how much money you may get based on that.
  • Superseding/Intervening Cause: Something occurs after negligence, but it was not the fault of the person (e.g., lightning strike).
• Doctrines:
  • Good Samaritan: Seeing an emergency and helping (with the person's consent); you cannot be sued. If the person does say no, you can be sued. (e.g., someone choking).
  • Dram Shop Act and Social Host: A restaurant or a person's home giving alcohol to someone underage or knowing that someone is an alcoholic, and then either one of those people gets into an accident after, you are liable.

Product Liability

• Elements:
  • Product is defective when sold.
    • Manufacturing defect: While the good was being manufactured, there was a defect in the manufacturing.
    • Design defect: There was a design defect.
    • Inadequate warning: No warning for a product.
  • Defect makes product unreasonably dangerous.
  • Causes harm.
• Plaintiffs
• Defendants
• Market Share Liability
• Defenses: Preemption, assumption of risk, unforeseeable product misuse, comparative fault, commonly known danger, statute of limitations/repose.
• Actus Reus: The action.
• Mens Rea: The mental state.

Corporate Liability

• Corporation: Corporations can be held liable for what their employees do if it could have been prevented.
• Crime Classifications: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and misdemeanors (2nd and 3rd crimes are noted).
• Burglary: Trespassing with intent to commit a crime (could be any crime).
• Larceny: Intentionally stealing.
• Obtaining Goods by False Pretenses: Larceny but with fraud.
• Receiving Stolen Property: Receiving a gift from someone, but that person stole it, and you should've known.
• Arson: Setting fire.
• Forgery: Forging documents.
• Embezzlement: Legally having access to someone’s property but using it unlawfully.
• Mail and Wire Fraud: Fraud, but a technological device was used (e.g., Olivia Jade case).
• Bribery: Giving someone something, like money, for something else of value.
• Theft of Trade Secrets: If someone steals your trade secret.
• Insider Trading: Someone who has information about a trade company with many shareholders and takes that access to buy and sell stuff with it (e.g., Robinhood, Snoop Dogg, drugs).
• Money Laundering: Cleaning money that came from something dirty (e.g., donating to non-profits without legitimate purpose).
• Cybercrimes: Phishing, hacking, cyberterrorism.

Defenses

• Self-Defense: The right to use force to defend yourself or someone else from imminent harm.
• Necessity: You had to commit a crime, but if you didn’t, greater harm would have occurred (e.g., battery – pushing someone out of the way of a car).
• Insanity: Incapable of having a mens rea (e.g., movie theatre shooting).
• Mistake: Defendant didn’t know something had value, but only if it negates mens rea.
• Duress: Committing a crime because you were threatened to do so.
• Entrapment: An undercover cop tricks you into committing a crime.
• Statute of Limitations: The time limit in which somebody can bring legal action; murder has no statute of limitations.
• Immunity or Prosecution for Reduced Offense: A lesser sentence for snitching.

Criminal Procedure

• Arrest
• First Appearance: Within 24/48 hours.
• Indictment/Information: Government takes the evidence to court and presents it to a jury.
• Discovery: Examining evidence and bringing in witnesses.
• Trial: Depending on crime, there could be a jury.
• Sentencing and Penalties: What the judge and the jury ultimately decide.

Safeguards

• Fourth Amendment: Government can search you due to a cop’s observations.
• Fifth Amendment: Everything is fair, and you cannot be forced to answer questions.
• Sixth Amendment: The right to have an attorney, a fast trial, a fair jury, and the right to confront a witness.
• Eighth Amendment: Bails and fines cannot be excessive (e.g., if you steal a piece of gum, you cannot be charged a million dollars).
• Miranda Rights: 5th and 6th amendment rights (e.g., you have the right to remain silent).