Features

Recent cases of interest.

The latest cases.

Whatever happened to the title agents licensing bill? At one point, it 'had to happen.' Innumerable meetings were held. Forests were felled to provide the paper to print and distribute various drafts of proposed bills. Lincolnesque letters and articles were written and published. E-mails clogged up thousands of mailboxes. And now silence. There may very well be a bill on the Governor's desk in the near future. This article represents an attempt to explain why the agent-licensing bill is not there yet. The opinions expressed are the author's own, have no official sanctions and do not advocate any particular version of the bill.

Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.

The notorious legal battle over the right to use the MUSTANG RANCH trademark for legal brothel services illustrates the 'use it or lose it' adage as applied to trademark rights and the difficulty of establishing an excuse for nonuse. <i>Burgess v. Gilman</i>, 78 U.S.P.Q.2d 1773 (D. Nev. 2006). Because U.S. law does not permit the warehousing of trademarks, the owner of a trademark typically must use the mark in commerce or lose the ability to prevent others from using it. For this reason, '8 of the Lanham Act requires trademark owners to file a declaration of use between the fifth and sixth year after registration and with renewals. 15 U.S.C. '1058.

All the cases contained in this issue.

Features

Whither goest thou?' Or, in plain English: Where are you going? That is the question that must be asked of the courts in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision in <i>eBay, Inc., v. MercExchange, LLC</i>, 126 S. Ct 1837 (2006), in which the Court reversed the long-standing practice in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the 'Federal Circuit') of granting permanent injunctions in patent cases absent a persuasive reason for not doing so.

Recent rulings you need to know.