Denise Howell, fortunately, caught and reported in on the settlement of the extraordinary Bikram Yoga intellectual property lawsuit over the rights to “hot yoga.” (It is always best of course that matters settle, but I can’t help but think that this outrageous dispute would have made for a fabulous trial.)
From the Hindustan Times story: “Bikram Choudhury, who trademarked his name and copyrighted his techniques, had been sending ‘cease and desist’ letters ordering studios to stop teaching the same form of yoga that his private school has used to train more than 2,000 yoga instructors who have opened more than 1,200 Bikram studios in the US.
Some of the studios formed a cooperative and sued Choudhury, claiming yoga cannot be copyrighted.
The settlement is confidential, but three people involved in the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Choudhury has agreed not to sue the 50 members of the San Francisco-based yoga cooperative for copyright violations. And cooperative members have agreed not to advertise the trademarked name ‘Bikram’ without authorisation by Choudhury.
The settlement avoids a June 20 trial that might have settled the legal question of whether Choudhury’s copyrighted package of 26 poses and two breathing exercises, performed in a certain sequence, could be legally protected in federal court.”
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