King cakes are a staple of Carnival season, and when the season kicks off on Twelfth Night, in New Orleans, there is hardly a day that goes by without at least one king cake in the kitchen of every office, school, and home...more
By an 8-1 vote, in United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V., 591 U.S. ____ (2020), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the addition of a generic top-level domain such as ".com" to an otherwise generic term...more
7/1/2020
/ Acquired Distinctiveness ,
Appeals ,
Booking.com ,
Domain Name Registration ,
Domain Names ,
Lanham Act ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
United States Patent and Trademark Office v Booking.com BV ,
USPTO
As businesses and offices prepare to reopen, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) shows its ongoing support for innovation and entrepreneurship during the novel coronavirus outbreak....more
On April 23, 2020, the United States Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020), resolved a circuit court split by confirming that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement...more
5/11/2020
/ § 1125(a) ,
§ 1125(c) ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Compensatory Awards ,
Dilution ,
Lanham Act ,
Lost Profits ,
Remand ,
Remedies ,
Romag Fasteners v Fossil ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Vacated ,
Willful Infringement
In response to the recent enactment of California's Fair Pay to Play Act, and the NCAA's subsequent approval for a policy change to address compensation to student athletes for the use of their name, image, and likeness,...more
The Immoral and Scandalous Bar to Trademark Registration is Unconstitutional -
On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court's decision in Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. __ (2019), struck down the Lanham Act's ban on registering...more
6/26/2019
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Lanham Act ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reversal ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination