In back-to-back decisions out of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, two federal judges have concluded that the use of copyrighted works to train AI can constitute fair use—at least under certain...more
To represent a client before Court in respect of a potential trademark infringement matter, do you require a Power of Attorney – and if so, what are the execution formalities required by your courts? No. A specific power of...more
Can AI-generated works comprise copyrightable compilations? Is an LLM an assistive device for disabled authors? The U.S. Copyright Office grapples with these questions and more in a recent decision that provides a glimpse...more
Luxury goods titan Hermès has been handed a major victory in its pioneering lawsuit involving trademark infringement through non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”). A federal jury in Manhattan recently found that an artist’s NFT...more
The last year has seen urgent discussions concerning racism, discrimination, police violence, inequality, and social justice come to the forefront of life in the United States. Corporate America – and its brands – responded...more
4/21/2021
/ Abandonment ,
Black Lives Matter ,
Corporate Branding ,
Corporate Culture ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Human Rights ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Matal v Tam ,
Race Discrimination ,
Race Relations ,
Rebranding ,
Social Media ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
On December 21, 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 and the act was signed into law on December 27, 2020. But don’t let the bland title fool you. Buried among the government funding and coronavirus...more
On December 21, 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 and the act was signed into law on December 27, 2020. But don’t let the bland title fool you. ...more
In a case “test[ing] the limits of the extraterritorial application of the Copyright and Lanham Acts,” the D.C. Circuit affirms the dismissal of design-your-own pizza restaurant &pizza’s lawsuit against an Edinburgh-based...more
The D.C. Circuit affirms a Copyright Royalty Board decision to sanction a copyright royalty collections agent by preventing the agent from pursuing a number of its royalty claims after the agent claimed to represent a...more
The Ninth Circuit rules in favor of furniture designer Herman Miller in its trade dress infringement suit against a copycat manufacturer of knockoff Eames and Aeron office chairs. The court affirms a jury finding that the...more
The United States Supreme Court holds that adding a top-level domain, like “.com”, to an otherwise generic term does not automatically result in a generic composite, and that a genericness determination must consider the...more
7/6/2020
/ Acquired Distinctiveness ,
Appeals ,
Booking.com ,
Domain Name Registration ,
Domain Names ,
Generic Marks ,
Lanham Act ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
United States Patent and Trademark Office v Booking.com BV ,
USPTO
The United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announces a new prioritized trademark examination program for certain trademark applications covering COVID-19 related products and services. ...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that bankrupt trademark licensors cannot use federal bankruptcy law to rescind the rights of their trademark licensees to continue use of duly licensed trademarks....more
5/30/2019
/ Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Contract ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Exclusions ,
Executory Contracts ,
IP License ,
Mission Product Holdings Inc v Tempnology LLC ,
Rescission ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 365 ,
Split of Authority ,
Trademark Licenses ,
Trademarks ,
Trustees