Bobby Ghajar

Bobby A. Ghajar is a partner specializing in trademark, copyright and advertising litigation and strategic counseling at Cooley LLP. He joined the firm in 2016, lateraling from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.

His clients include Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Anheuser-Busch Companies LLC, Apple Inc., Bath & Body Works LLC, Emerson Radio Corp., Ernst & Young Global Ltd., Meta Platforms Inc., Google LLC, Mattel Inc., Newmark Group Inc., Spin Master Corp., Upwork Global Inc. and Victoria’s Secret & Co.

Ghajar said the fresh buzz in his sector is around generative AI and its potential protectability under the copyright laws. “AI IP legal issues are new and different. If AI creates something for you, can you own it? The Copyright Office says no,” he said.

In March, the office published guidance regarding what it called “The Human Authorship Requirement” that nixed protection for AI-generated content.

But that is unlikely to be the last word. “People are wary about this, and we haven’t had a court weigh in yet.” Ghajar said he couldn’t talk about current client engagements that might end up before a judge over AI output protectability.

Meanwhile, more conventional issues roll on. In November, Ghajar and his team obtained a decisive win for Meta after a Swiss blockchain platform sued over Meta’s new corporate logo. The plaintiff alleged that Meta’s two-loops geometric design is confusingly similar to its logo of traditional infinity symbols. Dfinity Foundation v. Meta Platforms Inc., 3:22-cv-02632 (N.D. Cal., filed April 29, 2022).

Ghajar achieved a rare win at the pleading stage, persuading Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco that a common-sense review of the parties’ marks, goods and customers made the litigation ripe for early dismissal. Breyer found that any likelihood of consumer confusion was implausible based on the dissimilarity of the marks and the sophistication of Dfinity’s tech-savvy customer base. After Ghajar showed that an amended complaint remained defective, Dfinity agreed to drop the case.

“Any time someone claims a right to a common symbol, it catches your interest,” Ghajar said. “We didn’t think theirs looked anything like ours. It’s unusual to get a dismissal, but we felt this was one of those cases.”

Earlier last year, Ghajar led a Cooley team to win $6.5 million in damages after it sued on behalf of Emerson Radio, an air conditioning provider with a similar name. Ghajar is currently seeking several million dollars in enhanced damages and attorney fees. Emerson Radio Corp. v. Emerson Quiet Kool Co. Ltd., 1:20-cv-01652 (D. Del., filed Dec. 4, 2020).

The defense was flawed by several attorney changes and the missing of a series of deadlines; Ghajar obtained a default judgment.

“It was a problem of the defense’s own making, and the judge had had enough,” Ghajar said.

— John Roemer