Trademarks

While most trademark-related lawyers are familiar with the "Bad Spaniels" and "Chewy Vuitton" federal court decisions on trademark parody, decisions by the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on trademark parody marks are rarely examined.

As technology continues to permeate the legal industry, the significance of IP in safeguarding innovations, ensuring fair competition, and fostering a culture of creative legal solutions becomes paramount.

Last Term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jack Daniel's v. VIP Products — a case involving interaction between the Lanham Act and the First Amendment. This article traces the lower courts' reactions and applications to that decision.

Despite the fact that the trademark manual of examining procedure (TMEP) are readily available and searchable online, there are still a large number of applications that trademark examiners and judges must reject because the application does not conform to one or more conditions set forth in the Lanham Act or TMEP.

This article explores developments (both positive and negative) in the post-TMA world in which courts have wrestled with implementation of the presumption of irreparable harm in trademark cases.

This case has important implications not only for trademark registrations, but also potentially in determining collisions between trademark rights, rights of publicity, and freedom of speech considerations in future cases.

On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court set new geographic limits for infringement and false designation of origin claims raised under Sections 1114 and 1125(a) of the Lanham Act. Given the global nature of business today, the decision highlights the need for trademark owners to continually reassess and, perhaps, expand their international trademark registration strategy as product lines and brands become more international in scope.

In April 2021, a food fight broke out between two of the UK's largest supermarkets. Marks and Spencer launched legal action against Aldi over the latter's alleged copy of its signature "Colin the Caterpillar" cake. This article takes a look at the issues surrounding lookalikes, what the English courts have said about them and what can be done by brand owners to protect against the risks they present.