Apple has finally revealed its next iPhone, the iPhone 4S. The company is, as would be expected, calling it âthe most amazing iPhone yet.â But what makes it better than the iPhone 4?

Apple fans worldwide might be disappointed that the new device does not live up to the mystique of the much speculated on iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S is a dramatic leap forward in technological innovation and sophistication that will surprise mobile users, even current iPhone 4 owners.

Here are the four most significant reasons why someone would think the iPhone 4S is worth the price of upgrading. But if none of these speak to your inner gadget nerd, perhaps a free iPhone 3GS will do the trick.

Siri: Voice Activated Features

How does having your own personal assistant waiting for your every command sound? How about a helping hand that can look up the weather, read you text messages, find you nearby restaurants, tell you the time in Paris, set your alarm clock, give you directions, check your calendar for conflicting meetings, dictate and transcribe your notes and text messages, and so on, and all you have to do is ask?

Sounds fantastic, right? Well, thatâs Siri and itâs a personal assistant built in to the iPhone 4S. One of the coolest features is...

There was a recent ruling in the Apple v. Amazon case, that I previously discussed in the article âApple Making Power play By Suing Amazon Over App Store Trademark.â This recent ruling involved Apple's attempt to block Amazon's use of the term "app store" pending trial in this case. Apple claims infringement and dilution of its mark. To win on infringement, it must ultimately show that it has a legally protectable mark and that Amazon's use of the term "app store" to describe where it sells applications for use on Android devices will likely confuse consumers about the origin of the goods being sold. To win on dilution, Apple must show that the trademark is protectable, that it is "famous," and that Amazon's use of it dilutes its value.

To get a preliminary injunction, Apple needed to convince the judge that it is likely to win at trial and also that it will be irreparably harmed if Amazon is not blocked from using the mark during the time leading up to trial. The judge said no to the preliminary injunction, not on grounds of lack of irreparable harm (that issue was never reached) but on the ground that Apple was not likely to win on the merits of its claims at trial.

As I have previously described, trademarks are classified as...

After a considerable amount of interest in my prior article on Fair Use, I have decided to expand on the subject.

Free Republic, LLC, owner of the political website freerepublic.com, was found liable for copyright infringement in L.A. Times v. Free Republic for reproducing and archiving full-text versions of plaintiffs' news articles even though the judge found the website minimally commercial. She held that "while defendants' do not necessarily 'exploit' the articles for commercial gain, their posting to the Free Republic site allows defendants and other visitors to avoid paying the 'customary price' charged for the works."

The April 2000 opinion ruled concerning the four factors of fair use that 1) "defendants' use of plaintiffs' articles is minimally, if at all, transformative," 2) the factual content of the articles copied "weighs in favor of finding of fair use of the news articles by defendants in this case," though it didn't "provide strong support" 3) concerning the amount and substantiality prong, "the wholesale copying of plaintiffs' articles weighs against the finding of fair use," and 4) the plaintiffs showed that they were trying to exploit the market for viewing their articles online and defendants didn't rebut...

After a considerable amount of interest in my prior article on Fair Use, I have decided to expand on the subject.

Free Republic, LLC, owner of the political website freerepublic.com, was found liable for copyright infringement in L.A. Times v. Free Republic for reproducing and archiving full-text versions of plaintiffs' news articles even though the judge found the website minimally commercial. She held that "while defendants' do not necessarily 'exploit' the articles for commercial gain, their posting to the Free Republic site allows defendants and other visitors to avoid paying the 'customary price' charged for the works."

The April 2000 opinion ruled concerning the four factors of fair use that 1) "defendants' use of plaintiffs' articles is minimally, if at all, transformative," 2) the factual content of the articles copied "weighs in favor of finding of fair use of the news articles by defendants in this case," though it didn't "provide strong support" 3) concerning the amount and substantiality prong, "the wholesale copying of plaintiffs' articles weighs against the finding of fair use," and 4) the plaintiffs showed that they were trying to exploit the market for viewing their articles online and defendants didn't rebut...

For over ten years a California man named, Rick Norsigian has been trying to prove that a box of glass-plate negatives he bought at a yard sale are the work of Ansel Adams. Norsigian bought the negatives at a Fresno, California, garage sale for $45.

After marketing prints made from the negatives as Adams prints the Ansel Adams Publishing Right Trust filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit against Norsigian. Norsigian responded by filing counterclaims against the Trust.

A team of experts concluded they were Adams' early work, believed to have been destroyed in a 1937 fire at his Yosemite studio, Norsigian said. The Adams Trust disputed that.

However, the authentication effort was hampered from the beginning by the emergence of Earl Brooks. An Oakland woman, Marian Walton, produced a photo she said was taken by her "Uncle Earl" which seemed to match one of the negatives â a shot of the Jeffrey Pine in Yosemite.

Also in the fall of 2010, another seemingly matching photo of Yosemite was found in a photo scrapbook belonging to Brooks' great grandson. No word from Earl Brooks' family about settlement agreement; one legal chapter might have closed, but many questions remain.

Consequently, this week, Norsigian agreed to a ...

I canât say that I am surprised to see this, after Appleâs heated battle with Microsoft over the âApp Storeâ trademark, they are now suing Amazon for âimproper use.â

The trademark being sought by Apple is for "App Store." Under the relevant trademark law, a trademark cannot be registered if it consists solely of a generic or purely descriptive term. "Store" is generic. So too is the word "application," which is commonly thought of as being what the word "app" refers to. Therefore, no trademark could ever be registered for the word "store" or for the word "application" and certainly not for "application store" (no trademark can be registered when all of its constituent elements are generic). A trademark identifies the origin of goods or services and no one vendor can claim that a whole generic category of goods or services can be set out as a domain for which it and it alone is the origin. The question is, does any of this change because Apple's claim is for the word "app" as opposed to "application."

Apple claims that "app" in this context is a word that refers uniquely to Apple in the public mind, that is, when a typical consumer hears of an "app," that person immediately associates that word with an "Apple app" and not with...