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
Until now, the only means of protecting a trademark in the Maldives, the smallest country in Asia known for its rich marine life and vibrant coral reefs, was accomplished by publishing informal Cautionary Notices in local...more
If your mark is descriptive and lacks secondary meaning, the Principal Register may not be an option. But there’s still a path to protection: the Supplemental Register. The USPTO maintains two federal trademark registers....more
IN RE: ERIK BRUNETTI - Before Lourie, Dyk, and Reyna. Appeal from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) refusing to register a...more
Suppose you want to register a trademark that identifies a source of goods/services for your business. What if the trademark on the specimen of use has punctuation that is different from the drawing of the trademark in the...more
In a recent decision of the Australian Trade Marks Office, Karen Walker Limited successfully opposed the registration of the mark ‘Runaway the Label‘ for clothing, footwear and headgear (class 25) and online retail services...more
Registering and protecting a trademark involves more than just filing paperwork. Many businesses make costly errors that could lead to rejection, enforcement issues, or even the loss of rights. Here are some of the most...more
Registering a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides significant legal benefits, including nationwide protection and the presumption of ownership. Federal registration is a smart investment for...more
The Court ruled that the post-sale context can be relevant when establishing similarity between trade marks....more
We previously reported that on January 18, 2025, the USPTO implemented its new fee schedule, setting certain new fees and raising some existing ones. Now that the fees have been in place for a while, this Client Alert is to...more
A recent precedential decision enlarges the protection for foreign trademark owners. Plumrose Holding Ltd. v. USA Ham LLC, Opposition No. 91272970 (January 17, 2025). The decision is a nod to foreign trademark owners to...more
On April 1, 2025, long-awaited amendments to Canada’s Trademarks Act and Trademarks Regulations will come into force. The purpose of the amendments is to discourage abuse of Canada’s trademarks regime and to improve the...more
On December 27, 2024, the Korean National Assembly passed a proposed amendment to the Trademark Act (“Amendment”) which will be enacted six months following the date of promulgation. Originally published by Kim & Chang....more
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) ruled that a state agency has no sovereign immunity to a trademark opposition proceeding. Mountain Gateway Order, Inc. v....more
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
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
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