How To Select a Strong Trademark
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: SPIN Trademark Has Peloton Wrapped Around the Axel
JONES DAY TALKS®: Women in IP: 2020 in Review and a Look Toward 2021
Building a strong and distinctive brand identity for your business is crucial for driving sales, fostering consumer loyalty, and standing out in any industry, and more so for emerging and rapidly evolving sectors such as...more
As part of our series on trademarks as critical assets for businesses, this article discusses the importance of selecting and clearing a new or altered trademark for use and registration in the United States. Trademark...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the district court abused its discretion in wholesale exclusion of evidence on the issue of genericness. The evidence was offered to show prior use of a trade dress...more
On June 26, 2024, the Province of Québec released the long-awaited final amendments to the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business (Regulation), which amend multiple French-language requirements, including...more
As further guidance on how to determine whether a patent claim is directed to an ineligible abstract idea under the Alice Two-Step Test, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion, Beteiro v. DraftKings, No. 2022-2275...more
Every month, Erise’s trademark attorneys review the latest developments at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in the courts, and across the corporate world to bring you the stories that you should know about: David...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has denied OpenAI’s applications to trademark “ChatGPT” and “GPT.” The Final Office Action states, “Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a...more
In recent years, the forms of trademark infringement have become more and more diverse. The Trademark Law, the Regulations for the Implementation of the Trademark Law and judicial interpretations have clearly stipulated that...more
On January 10, 2024, the Regulation to amend mainly the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business (Draft Regulation) was published in the Gazette Officielle du Québec. The Draft Regulation was eagerly...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
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit considered whether “gruyere” cheese can be registered as a trademark in the United States, or whether it is merely a generic term that is not entitled to...more
In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rule that the combination of a generic term and a generic top-level domain (“gTLD”) is per se generic. See USPTO v. Booking.com B.V., 140 S. Ct. 2298 (2020) (“Booking.com”). In...more
There once was a company named Zotz, Which created toys for tots, Let’s use “Robotoy,” Zotz declares, File at once, Lawyer Zares, Months later, Zotz is dejected, Too descriptive, trademark rejected. First published in...more
ACI’s FDA Boot Camp is back in Boston! This essential training course – now in its 41st iteration – continues to provide the working knowledge of core essentials of FDA law and regulation, including the new amendments under...more
One of the signs of a healthy trademark is a certain level of distinctiveness. Distinctiveness is related to consumers’ love and recognition of a mark as an indicator of a product’s source, such that consumers trust the mark...more
Thank you for reading the July 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we continue our three-part series that closely examines ways to lose trademark rights with a discussion of genericide. We...more
Thank you for reading the May 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we discuss Taco Bell's attempt to cancel two TACO TUESDAY trademark registrations, and a precedential TTAB decision...more
Taco Bell’s recent efforts to liberate the phrase “Taco Tuesday” presents an opportunity to review the distinctions between marks that are generic and those that fail to function as a trademark....more
In a decision characterized by the National Milk Producers Federation as a "momentous victory for American consumers, farmers and food manufacturers" and a "huge victory for worldwide producers" of gruyere cheese, the U.S....more
The appellants, Interprofession du Gruyère and Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Gruyère, are two consortiums, Swiss and French, that regulate use of the term ‘gruyere’ to refer only to cheeses produced in the Gruyère district...more
When you hear the word “gruyere,” what comes to mind? A bucolic region in the mountains of Switzerland? Perhaps the Gruyère region of neighboring France? Or, more likely, you think of a type of cheese....more
In theory, a trademark can last “forever.” For example, the winged hourglass logo of the Longines watch company, originally registered in Switzerland in 1889, is the oldest valid trademark in the International Registry...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
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) recently issued Examination Guide 1-22, Clarification of Examination Evidentiary Standard for Marks Refused as Generic (Guide 1-22), which amends the PTO’s stance on the appropriate...more
At the end of last month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) released a guide clarifying how they were approaching the refusals of applied-for marks that could be generic. In the past, examining attorneys...more