Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - Prince Estate Wants Winery's 'Purple Rain' Trademark Back in the Bottle
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Prince Estate Wants Winery's 'Purple Rain' Trademark Back in the Bottle
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - False and Misleading Advertising, Label Review
Formally known as prohibited marks, official marks are a distinctive feature of Canadian trademark law, providing government entities with an exclusive and powerful tool to protect their marks, symbols and emblems. Private...more
In a tIPsheet article titled “SCOTUS rules Lanham Act does not have extraterritorial reach” published on July 20, 2023, we discussed Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int’l, Inc., 600 U.S. 412 (2023), a U.S. Supreme Court case...more
Yesterday, in Vidal v. Elster, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 2(c) of the Trademark Act (15 U.S.C. § 1052(c)), which prohibits registration of a mark that “[c]onsists of or...more
Joining a series of precedential decisions about descriptiveness, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently affirmed a refusal to register Sheet Pile, LLC’s (“Applicant”) mark ZPILE on the Principal Register, on the...more
Canada’s Competition Act was amended effective December 15, 2023 to both (i) establish a new, more expansive framework for challenging anti-competitive conduct by dominant firms and (ii) specifically provide that it is an...more
Licensing trademarks in Canada can be beneficial to a trademark owner when done properly, including providing a potentially powerful source of revenue. However, without careful drafting and management of the license, things...more
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has reiterated that there is no “strict or bright-line rule against registration of characters.” The case is In re Joseph A. Stallard, 2023 USPQ2d 1009 (TTAB 2023)....more
In business, trademarks are everything. It's how consumers come to know, love and trust your brand. It's a valuable corporate asset, and many disputes can arise of name rights with the explosion of e-commerce and the...more
On September 28, 2023, Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce (SHOP SAFE) Act. This bill is being introduced in...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’S) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled that the “doctrine of foreign equivalents” is a guideline rather than an absolute rule and may not apply to trademarks that combine...more
Section 22 of the Canadian Trademarks Act prohibits the use of a registered trademark “in a manner that is likely to have the effect of depreciating the value of the goodwill attaching thereto”....more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s end-of-term decision in Abitron v. Hetronic seems to have created more questions than answers about U.S. brand owners’ ability to leverage the federal Lanham Act in global trademark disputes. In the...more
U.S. businesses selling abroad cannot enforce domestic trademarks against foreign entities selling infringing goods into the United States through strawmen, according to a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in...more
In a win for brand owners across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that potential infringers as a threshold matter are not automatically shielded from liability by simply claiming their infringement includes...more
On March 21, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International, Inc. over whether the infringement provisions of the United States Trademark Act impose liability for...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office Trademark Trial & Appeal Board found that a consumer did not have standing to oppose an application for registration because the consumer failed to establish a commercial interest and injury...more
“File:200126 Lizzo on the 2020 Grammys Red Carpet.png” by Cosmopolitan UK is licensed under CC BY 3.0. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has approved the trademark registration of“100% THAT BITCH” by the musical...more
One of the ways that a “Geographical Indication”, or a “GI” can be protected in Australia is by registration of a ‘certification trade mark’. Certification trade marks are a specific type of trade mark registration designed...more
An application to register US SPACE FORCE as a trademark crashed at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) when the TTAB ruled that the mark caused a false suggestion of a...more
Suppose that you want to register a trademark that incorporates a name of a person to identify the source of goods or services for your business. Should you register your trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is amending the rules of practice in trademark cases to implement provisions of the Trademark Modernization Action of 2020 (TMA). Effective December 3, 2022, the period to...more
As college freshmen head to campus for the start of classes, there is one vital campus bookstore purchase before classes begin: a T-shirt bearing the college’s logo. This purchase is not only a rite of passage for freshmen;...more
In a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (Board) granted two opposers’ motions for partial judgment on their claim of false suggestion of a connection under Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act based on a...more
In a recent precedential1 opinion, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the refusal to register Jasmin Larian, LLC’s handbag design mark for “handbags” in Class 18, on the grounds...more
Thank you for reading the July 2022 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we discuss a recent precedential TTAB decision regarding product configuration marks. We also highlight recent...more