Yesterday, a federal court issued a major ruling against social media giant Pinterest in a trademark infringement lawsuit against much smaller startup Pintrips.

Pinterest is America’s third largest social network behind Facebook and Twitter. The company is currently valued at $11 billion and has an estimated 80 million monthly users. Users view, share, and organize content by creating “pins” on their virtual pin boards.

Pintrips is self-described as a collaborative trip-planning dashboard for tracking flights and prices across destinations in real time.

Creating a parody of a well-recognized brand is a popular way to captivate the public, à la the “Dumb Starbucks” phenomenon that took the internet by storm last year and had LA residents lining up around the block for a cup of “dumb coffee.”

But is this type of witty commentary legal? Well, as any lawyer will tell you, it depends.

Parody can be raised as a defense to a trademark or copyright infringement lawsuit.

The recent YouTube phenomenon of “unboxing”- opening the contents of packaged tech items or toys with an accompanying review or description- has proved incredibly lucrative for a variety YouTube contributors. These videos get millions of views, along with millions of dollars in ad revenue. Perhaps the most famous of the unboxing contributors is an unidentified woman known only by her YouTube handle: FunToyzCollector (formerly “DisneyCollectorBR”). It has been said that she is currently YouTube’s highest paid star, grossing over $4.9 million dollars in 2014 from her channel.

It’s easy to see how FunToyzCollector’s videos became so popular: her reviews of toys give kids (and yes, some adults) sneak peaks at the latest and greatest.

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington has lead to many novel intellectual property issues.

For example, in March 2014, a new state tax was proposed that would on Washington marijuana-related businesses seeking IP protection. Specifically, a tax of $3.60 would be assessed per $1000 of value of a business’s IP assets, including trademarks, trade names, brands, patents, and copyrights related to marijuana. The intended purpose of the tax is to “capitalize on [Washington’s] unique position” and use the generated revenue for agricultural research.