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The Pitch newsletter is a monthly update of legal issues and news affecting or related to the music, film and television, fine arts, media, professional athletics, eSports, and gaming industries. The Pitch features a diverse...more
In June 2015, Apple began using the mark APPLE MUSIC for its streaming services and filed a trademark application seeking to register the mark for production and distribution of sound recordings and arranging, organizing,...more
What is the difference between a traditional trademark and trade dress protection? Traditional Trademarks - According to the USPTO - A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things...more
Who Bears the Burden of Proof for IPR Estoppel? In Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corp., Appeal No. 21-2296, the Federal Circuit held that the patentee has the burden of proving that invalidity grounds not raised in a...more
On April 4, 2023, in a case of first impression, the Federal Circuit reversed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) and held that a trademark applicant cannot use the priority date of a prior application when the goods...more
On April 4, 2023, jazz musician Charles Bertini emerged victorious in his legal battle against the tech giant Apple Inc. To provide some background, in 2015, Apple launched a streaming service and filed for federal trademark...more
Reversing the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board’s decision to dismiss an opposition, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed the requirements for a trademark owner to employ “tacking” based on the use of a mark...more
BERTINI v. APPLE INC. Before Moore, Taranto and Chen. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: Tacking a mark for one good or service does not grant priority for every other good or service in the...more
As part of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took steps to return to normal operations. It began requiring live oral arguments in August 2022 and, by November,...more
Generic terms—terms that are primarily understood to be the name of a product or service—cannot be trademarks. For example, one cannot register APPLE as a trademark for (you guessed it) apples. When a trademark becomes...more
SCOTUS Class Action Update: Consumers Get Another Bite at Apple Profits for Alleged Antitrust Violations - On May 14th, in an opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court of the United States gave consumers the...more
Are apples different from pears? Or are they both just fruit? Or, as cockney rhyming slang would have it, are they stairs? These are the questions (excepting the last one) that the distinguished judges of the Court of Justice...more
The Dickinson Wright team of Craig Phillips, Edward Perdue, and Steven Lustig successfully defended client, Lowtech Studios – creator of the highly popular mobile phone game app slither.io, from a trademark challenge by...more
Design Patents—Supreme Court Decides Samsung v. Apple - Why it matters: On December 6, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Samsung v. Apple, holding that, for purposes of a "total profits" damages award for infringement of a...more
Trademarks are valuable tools for businesses since they allow a trademark holder to identify and distinguish its goods from those manufactured or sold by others. However, there are many issues to be aware of when seeking...more
For a mobile application developer, clearing the Apple® App Store's® often lengthy approval process and seeing the mobile application available for purchase may seem like the last necessary step to establish use of the name...more
In a decision authored by Chief Judge Sharon Prost, the Federal Circuit held that while design patents covering product configurations – that is, “a product feature or a combination or arrangement of features” – can protect...more
Anyone who knows me at all knows that I suffer from a terrible affliction called “early adopter syndrome.” I had a cell phone when it really was more of a brick with a speaker and the first smartphone, I can tell you, was not...more
Ever since I was old enough to appreciate them, I have enjoyed the Peanuts stories by the late Charles Schulz. Being young, it took me a while to realise that the cartoons, and particularly what the characters did or said,...more
In February 2013, the Instituto Nacional Da Propriedade Industrial (the “Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office”), ruled that Gradiente Electronica (“Gradiente”), not Apple, owned the “iPhone” mark in Brazil. The “iPhone” term...more
In This Issue: - AMERICA INVENTS ACT FINAL IMPLEMENTATION: FROM FIRST-TO-INVENT TO FIRST-TO-FILE: The America Invents Act (“AIA”), which went into effect September 16, 2011, introduces some of the most...more
In This Issue: • Bottle Design and Bottle Cap Design Are Both Entitled to Trademark Registration • Disney Owns Winnie-the-Pooh Trademarks • Apple Loses Claim Against Amazon for Use of Appstore - Excerpt...more
Amazon has recorded another success in its battle with Apple over use of the term APP STORE. The U.S. District Court in California has granted Amazon’s motion for summary judgment on Apple’s claim of false advertising...more