James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green

Photo of James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green

JAMES P. FLYNN is a Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Labor and Employment practices, and he serves as the Managing Director of Epstein Becker Green. His practice focuses on civil litigation and corporate counseling, including trial and appellate work in the area of intellectual property, complex commercial matters, and employment law. Mr. Flynn represents businesses in a broad spectrum of industries, including health care, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. His experience is similarly diverse and includes:

  • Representing clients in a wide variety of intellectual property matters, including restrictive covenants, trade secrets, copyright, trademark, and patent cases
  • Acting as lead trial and appellate counsel for the defendants inMarshak v. Treadwell and obtaining a jury verdict that invalidated plaintiff’s federal registration for the mark “The Drifters” for a singing group and recognized the clients’ ownership of the name
  • Counseling clients and litigating disputes concerning copyright infringement, cyber-squatting, trademark infringement and counterfeiting issues, false advertising, substantiation, and consumer fraud
  • Providing counsel and drafting advice for clients embarking on new business ventures, and drafts licensing, distribution, confidentiality, employment, and other agreements.

 

Subscribe to all posts by James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green

With Friends Like These: Copyright Implications Of Novelists Drawing Inspiration From The Real Lives They Cross

Fiction writing has a curious claim on truth.  We learn this at the youngest age, listening to fairy tales when the child in us “intuitively comprehends that, although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue …”  Bettelheim, The Uses Of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales  (at 73).  We hear this in … Continue Reading

Maybe Duct Tape Can’t Fix Everything: Slippery Standards As Copyright Goes Bananas

Whether one focuses on the word’s connotation of silliness or excitement, or maybe even anger, or analogizes to the raucous and rhymingly-named team from Savannah that makes up its own baseball rules, US copyright law is currently going a little “bananas.” From ongoing debates about the human element (or requirement) of authorship to debates over what … Continue Reading

Make Your Mark On History: Connecting Tradenames To Landmark Events, People & Places

The phrase “make your mark on history” is a commonplace one with several meanings and connotations.  It is one offered at many high school and college commencement speeches as an exhortation to graduates to have an impact beyond themselves–as future-President, then-Senator John F. Kennedy said when telling Northeastern’s graduating class in 1956 “to make your … Continue Reading

Defining Boundaries: IP Law Addresses Exterritoriality, Lexicography & Human Touch

“Yes, the law is about words…,” says Ben Chiriboga in writing about the essential skills that lawyers must have.  And Ken White noted more recently that “the entire project of the law is about words meaning specific things.”  But our problem often is that the law, or lawyers, frequently use unfamiliar or exotic terms that … Continue Reading

Free Speech, Chatting About Friends, Kraken/Crackin’ On AI, & Thinking About Fred & Ginger: Generated Content, Amici Curiae, & A Case About Jack Daniels That Dances Around Trademark Issues And Leaves Some Things To Chew On

Lots of people are talking about ChatGPT. Some, like those at Microsoft, see it as a valuable tool to be integrated into their products and platforms; indeed, one of its lawyers thought that the answer provided by ChatGPT to his legal question “sounds like a pretty good lawyer 😉.” But others are wondering whether we … Continue Reading

SECONDS & LEFTOVERS AFTER THANKSGIVING: Cleaning Up & Emptying Out The IP Fridge

The American holiday of Thanksgiving is tradition-laden and is celebrated as much for the leftovers after that November Thursday as it is for the turkey on that day, at least according to the US Department of Agriculture.  Indeed, Americans “idolize Thanksgiving left overs,” and the “[t]he overstuffing of America’s fridges has become something of a … Continue Reading

Full Of Sound And Query, Signifying Something: Recent Noise Over Acoustic Trademarks

Leo the Lion has been the most regular star of MGM Pictures since it was founded on this day in 1924, and his roar is probably the sound most commonly associated with the studio. –Kat Eschner, The Story of Hollywood’s Most Famous Lion (2017)   There’s no roar quite like a Nittany Lion’s! –Penn State Football … Continue Reading

Just Humor Them: Jests, Jokes, Satire, and Parody In Infringement and Defamation Cases

Legend has it that shortly after Adam was created, he complained: ‘O, Lord! you have given the lion fierce teeth and claws, and the elephant formidable tusks; you have given the deer swiftness of legs, and the turtle a protective shell; you have given the birds of flight wings, but you have left me altogether … Continue Reading

A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG…CODE(R)?: Why Understanding Artificial Intelligence & Real Creativity Shouldn’t Make The Artist A Dunsel

Art, said Stephen, is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.” ― James Joyce, A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, Chapter V   [T]he application…identified the author of the Work as the ‘Creativity Machine,’ and noted it was ‘Created autonomously by machine.’ —Complaint, paragraph 17 in Thaler … Continue Reading

Spring Cleaning: Decluttering From Recent Intellectual Property Detritus & Dusting Off Old Posts

Our favorite thing about spring [is] spring cleaning. It’s a way to say, “I’m dusting off the winter blues and coming out of hibernation.”… At the office, spring cleaning can take on a whole new meaning. It is a chance to reorganize and refresh your workspace and your workflow. Plus, organizing will actually improve your overall focus and … Continue Reading

“What’s Mine Is Not Yours To Give Me”—Nor To Take Without Just Compensation: A New Jersey Reaction To Sovereign Immunity, Intellectual Property, & Takings

I have to give it to creative, resilient lawyers (and in fact, I have lauded them in the past here and there).  When the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Allen v. Cooper, 140 S.Ct. 994 (2020), a decision holding that the sovereign immunity of individual states prevented a copyright holder from recovering … Continue Reading

THE PARASKAVEDEKATRIAPHOBIA PRECEDENT: Why Friday The 13th Decision Raises Fear Of Slashing Long-Held Copyrights

Admittedly, the second word in that title is a mouthful—but Paraskavedekatriaphobia is a real word, with an etymology and definition.  It even has a synonym, friggatriskaidekaphobia.  Each means “fear of Friday the 13th.”    Though I am tempted to write this October piece about Halloween (whether it is the day or the movies by that name, … Continue Reading

WHAT, IN THE NAME OF GOD, …?: Intellectual Property Rights In Holy Names, Sacred Words, & Other Aspects of Creation

The title of this piece tracks a common “phrase of exasperation used to emphasize a question or statement.”  If that be the case, and I think it is, then the subtitle implies the question this piece will address.  That question is “how have various countries’ intellectual property laws addressed efforts to copyright, trademark, or patent … Continue Reading

Entitled To Copyright Erasure?: A Fair Use Search For A Derived Yet Transformational Work

The title is the first thing the reader sees or hears …—and getting it right is the single most important … decision you’ll make. The title forms the basis of the reader’s judgment ….” Tucker Max For those of you who may read my past ILN posts, you will not be surprised that I subscribe … Continue Reading

The King Is Dead! Long Live The King!: Elvis Sightings, Taking Care of Business, And Rights Of Post-Mortem Publicity

…Never let me go… I’ll be yours through all the years, till the end of time. [Love Me Tender, performed by Elvis Presley] Elvis sightings have had a long, storied life of their own since the King of Rock-and-Roll’s “death” was reported (or perhaps exaggerated (though neither greatly nor grossly)), in 1977.  Indeed, since 1977, … Continue Reading

Out Of Character: Jersey Boys, Detective Stories, & The Case Of Space-Traveling Tardigrades

At heart, and still, I am a non-singing Jersey Boy, and one who grew up reading Sherlock Holmes stories and watching Star Trek, the Original Series (before it even needed that modifier), in reruns in the 1970s while also keeping up with the real Rocky.  And, I have been writing for ILN IP Insider for … Continue Reading

Queen Anne’s Revenge, Indeed!: Copyright Conundrums, Sovereign States, and IP Piracy

“One man’s legally sanctioned privateer is another man’s pirate.”           [James Wadsworth, Global Piracy: A Documentary History of Seaborne Banditry (2019), at p. 8] We live in a time of contradictions and confusion, and today we aim to explore how some such tensions have manifested themselves in the area of intellectual property law. On the one … Continue Reading

Not Only Will We March Again: Committed, Resilient IP Lawyers Marching Still In Time Of COVID

A few weeks back, as remote working and social distancing were becoming the order of the day (and interesting phrase, given what quickly became the norm in many US states and cities, as executive orders abounded), my son tossed a statement in my direction that was both compliment and challenge:  “Isaac Newton developed calculus, among … Continue Reading

Is BURNS NIGHT OFF KILT-ER?: Scotch, Trademarks & Distilling American Meanings

Within a year after the 1787 Edinburgh edition of his poems, American editions…were published in both Philadelphia and New York. Ever since we [Americans] have adopted the beauty, the humor and the wisdom of Robert Burns as part of our own culture and our own idiom—-often, even usually, without knowing the source in Scotland’s ploughman poet. … Continue Reading

Th-Inking About The Law: Tattoos Leaving Indelible Marks On Black-Letter Principles & Coloring Our Perspectives

Tattoos, one of the oldest art forms in the world, are all over the legal news in recent years.  The news runs the gamut from a tattooist suing a movie studio over replication of Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo in The Hangover II to artists looking to gaming companies for compensation for reproduction of tattoos appearing … Continue Reading

WORLD FAMOUS (By, Say, New Jersey Standards): Expanding The Right Of Publicity Nationally And Internationally

Springsteen. Sinatra. Chuck Wepner (for at least one night in 1975 and then through the “Rocky” avatar). At least some of the people that rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike are named after. These public figures are, or were, world-famous, and certainly had made a name for themselves outside of the Garden State, even … Continue Reading

Still Standing?: The Sometimes Rocky World Of Public Art

What distinguishes public art is the unique association of how it is made, where it is, and what it means.” —The Association for Public Art To many, the names “Rocky Balboa” and the “Italian Stallion” are as universal and front of mind as the names “Chuck Wepner” and the “Bayonne Bleeder” are regional and tucked … Continue Reading

“…For me? As what? Tough guy? I don’t need tough guys. I need more lawyers…”: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW IN CRIMINAL MATTERS

There is a popular vintage Harley Davidson t-shirt that says “Tough Guys Finish First.”  That may be true.  But, sometimes, to finish first, one does not need more tough guys; one needs more lawyers, as a crime-related matter involving the Mongols Motor Cycle Club has recently shown.  So today we thought that we would use … Continue Reading

“…this is my life”: Corporate Biography, Moral Rights & Being Slow To Berne

I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life Go ahead with your own life leave me alone. —Billy Joel, My Life People often do quite well financially selling their life story.  But stop and think for a minute what that statement means — “selling their life story.”  The complex personal investment each … Continue Reading
LexBlog