Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

Features

Decision of Note<br><i>Empire</i> TV Show Doesn't Infringe Hip-Hop Label Trademark Image

Decision of Note<br><i>Empire</i> TV Show Doesn't Infringe Hip-Hop Label Trademark

Stan Soocher

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that the Fox TV show <i>Empire</i> didn't violate federal Lanham Act or California trademark rights of the urban music record label Empire Distribution.

Columns & Departments

Bit Parts Image

Bit Parts

Stan Soocher

No Trademark Protection for <i>Dirty Dancing</i> Phrase Used in Financial Services Ad

Features

Protecting Product Packaging and Product Configuration Image

Protecting Product Packaging and Product Configuration

Marcus S. Harris

Registering and protecting product designs is challenging. Preliminarily, trade dress cannot be registered or protected as a trademark if it is functional — if it is “essential to the use or purpose of the article or it affects the cost or quality of the article.”

Features

What Will Impact Be of Supreme Court's <i>Tam</i> Decision? Image

What Will Impact Be of Supreme Court's <i>Tam</i> Decision?

Theodore H. Davis Jr. & Samuel T. Kilb

In <i>Matal v. Tam</i>, the trademark case involving the name of the Asian-American rock band The Slants, the SCOTUS held that the portion of §2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1052(a), that prohibits the federal registration of potentially disparaging trademarks and service marks, violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Features

<i>Matal v. Tam</i> and Viewpoint-Discriminatory Prohibitions Against Federal Registration Image

<i>Matal v. Tam</i> and Viewpoint-Discriminatory Prohibitions Against Federal Registration

Theodore H. Davis Jr. & Samuel T. Kilb

In <i>Matal v. Tam,</i> the SCOTUS held that a portion of Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1052(a), prohibiting the federal registration of potentially disparaging trademarks and service marks, violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Features

Manufacturers vs. Exclusive Distributors: Who Owns the Trademarks? Image

Manufacturers vs. Exclusive Distributors: Who Owns the Trademarks?

Kyle-Beth Hilfer

The Third Circuit has adopted McCarthy's "ownership" test in determining whether a manufacturer or distributor owns a trademark in the absence of an express agreement between the parties.

Columns & Departments

Bit Parts Image

Bit Parts

Stan Soocher

Consumers' Digital Music Price-Fixing Suit Ruled No "Class" Act<br>Marshall Tucker Band's Former Manager Loses Bid for Attorney Fees After Prevailing in Trademark Action Brought Against It By the Band

Columns & Departments

Supreme Court News Image

Supreme Court News

ljnstaff & Law Journal Newsletters

'Disparaging' Trademarks Decision<br>High Court Declines Takedown Notice/Fair Use Case

Columns & Departments

Bit Parts Image

Bit Parts

Stan Soocher

Mash-Up of Dr. Seuss/Star Trek Components Is a Fair Use

Features

"'Google' It" Is a Protected Trademark Image

"'Google' It" Is a Protected Trademark

Ross Todd

Consumers might use "Google" as a verb, but that doesn't mean Google's trademark for its search engine is generic.

Need Help?

  1. Prefer an IP authenticated environment? Request a transition or call 800-756-8993.
  2. Need other assistance? email Customer Service or call 1-877-256-2472.

MOST POPULAR STORIES

  • Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
    There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
    Read More ›
  • Compliance Officers and Law Enforcement: Friends or Foes?
    <b><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</b></i><p>As we saw in Part One, regulators have recently shown a tendency to focus on compliance officers who they deem to have failed to ensure that the compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) programs that they oversee adequately prevented corporate wrongdoing, and there are several indications that regulators will continue to target compliance officers in 2018 in actions focused on Bank Secrecy Act/AML compliance.
    Read More ›