The Briefing: COVID 19 Bill Stimulates the Economy and Changes in the Intellectual Property Law
Charity seeking to register product designs as trademark icon not met the “very high burden” for showing acquired distinctiveness - On September 1, 2023 the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a nonprecedential...more
Thank you for reading the August 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we conclude our series that explores ways to lose trademark rights with an examination of naked licensing, discuss a...more
In the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, which came into effect as of January 1, 2021, “personality rights” has become a major highlight for its independent codification. As a result, the protection of human...more
The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced that starting on December 3, 2022, those filing trademark applications will have three months (instead of the original six) to respond to office actions during...more
Since Article 8 of the Trademark Law of China (2001) stipulates that a three-dimensional sign can be filed for registration as a trademark, three-dimensional sign trademarks (also known as the “three-dimensional trademarks”)...more
Is your trademark registered? Should you register it? Why should you register it? What do you have to do? What does the process look like? Can you do it yourself or do you need to hire an attorney? These are just a few of the...more
When a corporation expands its business into Canada, consideration should be given to whether it can register its brand as a trademark in this new market. While a corporation may operate in this market without registered...more
The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (the “TMA”) was buried in the enormous COVID relief and stimulus bill (i.e., the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2021), signed into law on December 27, 2020. The TMA amends federal...more
In this episode, Scott and Josh discuss the changes in Intellectual Property Law stemming from the recently passed COVID-19 Stimulus Bill. The IP law blog is a publication of Weintraub Tobin (www.weintraub.com). The...more
In this White Paper, we share observations on 2020's most significant developments in trademark law. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court penned three opinions concerning what constitutes a protectable trademark, available...more
Statistics from 2018 reveal that .03% of trademark applications were paper filed. As such, effective February 15, 2020, paper trademark filings are no longer an option. The United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO")...more
On February 7, 2020, the U.S. Trademark Office issued long-anticipated guidelines governing electronic filing and electronic communications with attorneys and trademark owners. Effective February 15, 2020, these new rules...more
Unlike patents and copyrights, obtaining a federally registered trademark requires (among other things) that applicants abide by the “lawful” use in commerce requirement. In other words, the United States Patent and Trademark...more
Legalizing “hemp” under the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) has triggered an important change for the examination of federal trademark applications concerning cannabis and cannabis-derived goods and...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") generally refuses to register marks that violate federal law. Hemp and hemp-derived CBD were previously classified as Schedule I controlled substances under the Controlled...more
Following the enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill [see related article1], the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just this morning released a new Trademark Examination Guide for marks covering cannabis and...more
June 17, 2019 is the big day – a day anticipated since 2014. The major changes to the Canadian Trademarks Act will be implemented on this day. What does this mean for trademark owners?...more
Suppose that you want to register a trademark that identifies a source of goods or services for your business. What if the trademark describes a geographical area such as eastern? Should you register your trademark with the...more
When examining trademark applications, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) considers whether the applied-for mark is confusingly similar to any registered or prior-filed marks by applying the following...more
In a recent precedential decision, the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) confirmed that a hashtag symbol (#) generally adds little or no source-indicating distinctiveness to a trademark. In this case, rapper...more