Dr. Kenneth Economy was employed by East Bay Anesthesiology Medical Group (“Anesthesia Group”), which held an exclusive contract to provide anesthesia services at The East Bay Hospital (“Hospital”). During asurprise...more
Addressing an appeal from four related actions concerning Orange Book patents covering Suboxone® sublingual film, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgments that certain generic...more
What constitutes a “scandalous” trademark? The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been grappling with this question since the enactment of the 1905 Trademark Act, later codified in the 1946 Lanham...more
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in Iancu v. Brunetti regarding the constitutionality of the portion of Lanham Act, Section 2(a) (15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)) that prohibits the United...more
On April 15, 2019, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether dirty words and vulgar terms may be registrable as trademarks – and if so, what is the test? Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act currently provides that the...more
The constitutionality of yet another portion of Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act will soon be determined. Following in the footsteps of the blockbuster decision in Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017) (“Tam”), the U.S. Supreme...more
The Supreme Court of the United States granted the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO’s) request that it address whether the prohibition of federal trademark protection for “immoral” or “scandalous” marks is invalid under...more
On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear a case that will decide whether the federal ban on trademark protection for “scandalous” material is unconstitutional. In re Brunetti follows the U.S. Patent...more
A recent decision from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals offers a key reminder for public agencies: Even within a nonpublic forum, an individual’s and/or community’s Constitutionally protected freedom of speech cannot...more
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has ruled that Seattle violated the First Amendment by banning “disparaging” ads on city buses....more
A county violated the First Amendment by refusing to display an advertisement related to global terrorism on its public buses, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held....more
2017 was a year filled with significant developments in case law for trademarks. The below rulings highlight some successes and obstacles faced by companies in the protection of their trademarks and their brand as a whole. ...more
On June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the disparagement clause of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq.) in Matal v. Tam (137 S. Ct. 1744), holding that it violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause. ...more
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently extended First Amendment protections for trademark applications in In re Brunetti, No. 15-1109 (Fed. Cir. December 15, 2017), ruling that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act’s...more
• The Federal Circuit held that the “immoral or scandalous” clause of Lanham Act § 2(a), which prohibits registration of a trademark that “consists of or comprises immoral or scandalous matter,” is unconstitutional under the...more
On December 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down the Lanham Act's ban on registering immoral or scandalous trademarks as unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds in In re Brunetti, --- F.3d...more
Simon Tam of the Asian rock band, The Slants, probably was not envisioning an 8-year-long legal battle when he chose the group’s name. Slant is known as a racial slur for Asians. Tam hoped to strip the term of its derogatory...more
In another example of a federal circuit court taking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to task for stretching federal labor law past the point of recognition, the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused to...more
Over the past several years, we have reported on a seemingly never-ending series of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions proclaiming a variety of abusive employee practices as protected behavior under federal labor...more
In a much anticipated decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. ___ (June 19, 2017) that a provision of the Lanham Act banning the registration of marks considered disparaging to “persons, institutions,...more
On January 18, 2017, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding whether the Lanham Act’s provision refusing federal trademark registration to disparaging marks is invalid under the Free Speech Clause of the First...more
A Smooth Patch in a Rough Road? Governmental Transition and Intellectual Property - Whenever a new Congress convenes, some IP issues come to the fore while others take a back seat. Transition to a new administration in the...more
The October 2016 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter provides an update on the Redskins trademark case, discusses a recent TTAB ruling regarding ownership of families of marks, and announces the new gTLD...more
Further to our post last Friday on the SLANTS trademark case, the U.S. Supreme Court today, without comment, refused the Redskins’ Petition to join the SLANTS case challenging the U.S. Trademark Office’s ban on “offensive”...more
As part of our continuing monitoring of this issue, we bring you the latest chapter in the saga over the registration of THE SLANTS trademark. After the en banc Federal Circuit struck down Section 2(a) as facially...more