Today’s post is about North Carolina’s common-law tort of unfair competition. We’ve talked about the tort before, and mentioned her a time or two in passing. But often, we just remember unfair competition as “the child of confusion,” the stepsister of trademark infringement, and the oft-forgotten cousin of section 75-1.1. […]
If you’ve ever pulled up N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1 on WestLaw or Lexis, you may have noticed that the statute is flagged as “unconstitutional or preempted.” This notation is there, in part, due to a 2008 case that holds that the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. §§ 106, […]
I didn’t anticipate how many friends and family members would tap me for free advice when I became a lawyer. Sometimes, my J.D. seems to hang over me like the sign at Lucy’s psychiatry booth from Peanuts. You might have had the same experience. Remarkably, I get asked one question […]
Today’s post concerns a recent decision about the scope of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-45.4, the statute that controls which cases the North Carolina Business Court can hear. This issue and the decision—called UNOX, Inc. v. Conway—are important for at least two reasons. For one, and stating the obvious, the […]