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The iconic male striptease touring company known as Chippendales lost its fight for stronger trade dress protection for its “cuffs and collars” look on Friday. Trade dress refers to the overall appearance of…

Lindsay Lohan brought suit against E*Trade Bank and E*Trade Securities LLC on Monday in the Supreme Court of the State of New York for violating her civil rights under New York law.  Lohan has claimed that two E*trade commercials entitled “The E*Trade baby is back” and “E*Trade Baby Girlfriend” have used her name without her permission to promote their products to the detriment of Miss Lohan.  The two commercials, which were first aired during the 2010 Superbowl and then again during the 2010 Winter Olympics, make brief mention of a third party named “Lindsay” and describe her as a “milk-a-holic”.  It is this mention of a person named “Lindsay” during the commercial that allegedly infringes Miss Lohan’s civil rights under Section 51 of the Civil Rights Law of New York.  The complaint requests injunctive relief preventing further transmission of the commercials, seizure of those commercials, and monetary and exemplary damages.  The commercial itself and commentary appear after the jump.

Last week administrators at Brooklyn Law School issued a memorandum informing students that it ultimately decided it would not release the names of students who illegally downloaded material from the internet on the BLS server to the RIAA and other intellectual property owners.  This statement followed a memorandum issued the previous day that BLS would proactively investigate students who illegally download software and media using the BLS server and report them to the holders of the intellectual property rights without warning.  The new policy involves notifying the students accused of internet piracy and ordering them to desist any illegal copyright infringement.  BLS admins have apparently decided to give students who engage in internet piracy a little more leniency and refrain from proactive investigation.

Writing for the New York Times this week, Brian Stelter pointed out that the ubiquitous social networking website Facebook had changed its terms of use.

This month, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire. Further, it added new language that said Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was terminated.

Want a “Boston College boyfriend pant”? Click here.Boston College has apparently sold Victoria’s Secret a license to sell a line of apparel under the “Boston College” trademark. The story is making for some sensational regional headlines, but it is unclear if anyone’s knickers are truly in a wad. Links to articles and video after the jump.

This patent application, just published two weeks ago, has got to be one of the more ludicrious ones that the US Patent and Trademark Office has seen in a long time. It’s titled: “Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against A Second Party”

Essentially, it’s a method patent on how to be a patent troll! As if that wasn’t enough, Halliburton’s (yes, that Halliburton) explanation to the AmLaw Daily, courtesy of the WSJ Law Blog, for why they filed the application was that they did it as a defense against patent trolling.

“So, infers AmLaw Daily, Halliburton wants to patent patent trolling so it can block patent trolls.”

How great is that?!  I’m just waiting for Halliburton’s patent application on a method to get paid in full on no-bid contracts from a government without actually fulfilling the terms of the contracts.  At least in that case, they’d be practicing the patent.

So what’s a patent troll?