In November, the USPTO refused Taylor Swift’s application to register The Life of a Showgirl. The mark was confusingly similar, the office wrote, to one already federally registered: “Confessions of a Showgirl,” owned since 2015 by a Las Vegas performer named Maren Wade. Wade had built her brand under that name for 12 years. A column in Las Vegas Weekly, a podcast, a touring cabaret. Swift’s merchandise operation continued anyway.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that a cease-and-desist letter can establish personal jurisdiction, finding that cease-and-desist letters sent to Floridian licensees that went beyond merely informing others of the sender’s intellectual property rights are sufficient to establish the minimum contacts necessary to exercise personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants.
Certain substantive aspects of trademark law and practice are now meaningfully different between the UK and EU, and procedural differences that were already present are now more pronounced. These changes raise important considerations for entertainment businesses operating across Europe.
In categories where products are difficult to differentiate on performance, and that describes most of the AI industry today, customers do not choose on features, they choose on trust. Brand integrity, in those markets, is a material business asset.
After nearly two decades of separation from the business that bore his name, golf legend Jack Nicklaus has reclaimed ownership of his brand and the iconic “Golden Bear” trademark, marking a significant legal and commercial victory following a protracted dispute and bankruptcy proceedings involving his former company.
Matthew McConaughey secured eight federal trademark registrations covering his voice and iconic catchphrases in a novel legal strategy aimed at combating AI’s unauthorized use of his voice and likeness. The move signals an important evolution in the power dynamics between talent/brands and the companies providing generative AI tools.
Despite incredible progress in natural-language reasoning, AI tools still face fundamental limitations when it comes to performing even basic trademark searches. Here are five important reasons why.
Artificial intelligence tools powered by large language models have become valuable resources in the trademark process. Despite incredible progress in natural-language reasoning, AI tools still face fundamental limitations when it comes to performing even basic trademark searches. Here are five important reasons why.
The decision reasserts important limits on the USPTO’s authority, particularly its reliance on unverified foreign-language translations, hypothetical assumptions about what businesses “might” offer in the future, and tenuous connections between a word and a service category.
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to commence its term on October 6. Among the cases it will review are several appeals concerning copyright and trademark law. One notable case seeks to address procedural inconsistencies and claims of unconstitutional vagueness attributed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
