So many songs, so many lawsuits.  As February brings a plethora of romantic tunes to the airwaves and to people’s hearts, a copyright case recalls how one of the most popular Motown creations was alleged to have been plagiarized from another source. When Baby Love was sung by popular “girl group” The Supremes, it became [...]

As Halloween approaches, our thoughts turn to candy — and court cases.  A sweet combination of both can be found in Record Group 21, the U.S. District Court, the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago.  Civil case number 47C1770 was filed in 1947, when the Life Savers Corporation sued the Curtiss Candy Company for trademark infringement. [...]

“The following program is brought to you in living color by CBS.”  Wait.  That’s not right.  But it might have been if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had its way back in 1950.  The variation of the long-used advertising slogan by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), first uttered in 1957, may not have been conceived [...]

When talking about red and blue, many Americans think of the political happenings and the colors of states.  But before there were those geographic designations, red and blue were associated with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and its networks. While in recent years there has been an increase in the number of entities corporations can [...]

The economy has been at the top of the newscasts, not to mention peoples’ thoughts, for several years now with no end in sight.  Although there has been prosperity since World War II, during the difficult war years the government worked at keeping the economy under control.  At the forefront of its efforts was the [...]

Who knew oats could be so powerful? One Midwestern company knew their strength and did whatever it could to protect its interest in the grain and its products.

“Sock it to me!”  That is, in a way, what happened to Richard Havilland.  And he never got to utter that phrase on the television show that made it famous, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.  He did, however, fight back and socked Playboy with a lawsuit.  The case provides a fascinating look at not only the [...]

September 2 is not necessarily a day which will live in infamy; nevertheless it is significant in world history marking the formal end of World War II in 1945 when Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri. While the military fought overseas, Americans at home were doing their part with a little [...]

Not all crimes are worthy of great publicity. Petty thievery is commonplace, and certainly does not warrant a lot of attention.  However, some cases are considered “perfect” crimes. One happened near Chicago and is documented not only in the National Archives, but also on television. In 1981, William Smarto, along with assistance from his brother [...]