In BWP Media USA v. Gossip Cop Media, a case sure to bring cheer to paparazzi and tabloid publishers everywhere, a judge in the Southern District of New York has found after a bench trial that a gossip website willfully...more
International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (known as ISC2) is a non-profit organization that owns a registered certification mark for the term CISSP® (meaning “Certified Information Systems...more
An application to register PRETZEL CRISPS as a mark will live another day, thanks to a Federal Circuit opinion reversing a TTAB decision that had canceled the mark on grounds of genericness....more
Did TTAB proceedings — until now considered a relatively obscure branch of IP litigation, conducted before an administrative body of which most attorneys are blissfully unaware — just assume greater importance? That seems...more
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the Ninth Circuit Hana Financial v. Hana Bank and ruled that the question of “tacking” — whether a party’s prior version of its trademark is so closely similar to the current...more
Like claims for defamation or commercial disparagement, Lanham Act claims are viable only if they involve statements of fact, rather than opinion. But what happens if an advertising statement concerns an issue that is a...more
In a ruling sure to generate heated discussion in the sports world, the trademark community and elsewhere, a divided panel of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has ruled that six registered marks including the term...more
In the U.S., a senior user of a trademark can block a junior user within the geographic area of prior use, even if the junior user is the party with an incontestable U.S. federal registration. This is perfectly illustrated...more
In a decision issued earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit held that the right to bring copyright claims cannot be transferred without an accompanying transfer of copyright ownership itself....more
5/24/2013
Nike, having sued competitor Already LLC for infringing its marks, later issued a covenant not to sue to Already and sought to dismiss the case. Defendant Already, however, had filed a counterclaim seeking a declaration that...more
Like Joel Tenenbaum, who has been discussed in prior entries in this blog, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has conducted a long-running battle with the recording industry over how much damages she should pay for her downloading...more