(Podcast) The Briefing: The Fall of SUPER HERO – When Trademarks Become Generic
The Briefing: The Fall of SUPER HERO – When Trademarks Become Generic
How To Select a Strong Trademark
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: SPIN Trademark Has Peloton Wrapped Around the Axel
JONES DAY TALKS®: Women in IP: 2020 in Review and a Look Toward 2021
Suppose that you want to register your trademark that is in a non-English language on goods or services for your business in the United States. Will your non-English language trademark need to be translated to English to...more
In a precedential decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently blessed the test used by the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) for denying registration to PT Medisafe Technologies for a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board’s refusal to register the mark VETEMENTS for clothing and related retail services, finding that the mark was generic under the...more
Addressing for the first time the test for determining whether a color mark is generic, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit adopted the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board’s Milwaukee test as the appropriate standard,...more
In refusing registration of the color green for “chloroprene medical examination gloves,” the Federal Circuit adopted — for the first time — a legal test for genericness of color marks. The decision underscores the high...more
Suppose that you have obtained a U.S. trademark registration for your trademark on goods or services for your business. Can your trademark registration be cancelled with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office based on...more
Last month, the creators of beloved characters like “Superman” and “Spider-Man” declined to come to their own rescue when their SUPER HERO and SUPER HEROES registrations were cancelled by a default judgment from the U.S....more
I distinctly remember purchasing the Superman/Spiderman team-up when it came out in 1981. It was an oversized comic book, with heavier than usual pages and a vibrant color scheme, and that made it perfect for laying it out on...more
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit considered whether “gruyere” cheese can be registered as a trademark in the United States, or whether it is merely a generic term that is not entitled to...more
In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rule that the combination of a generic term and a generic top-level domain (“gTLD”) is per se generic. See USPTO v. Booking.com B.V., 140 S. Ct. 2298 (2020) (“Booking.com”). In...more
One of the signs of a healthy trademark is a certain level of distinctiveness. Distinctiveness is related to consumers’ love and recognition of a mark as an indicator of a product’s source, such that consumers trust the mark...more
Thank you for reading the July 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we continue our three-part series that closely examines ways to lose trademark rights with a discussion of genericide. We...more
Thank you for reading the May 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we discuss Taco Bell's attempt to cancel two TACO TUESDAY trademark registrations, and a precedential TTAB decision...more
Taco Bell’s recent efforts to liberate the phrase “Taco Tuesday” presents an opportunity to review the distinctions between marks that are generic and those that fail to function as a trademark....more
In a decision characterized by the National Milk Producers Federation as a "momentous victory for American consumers, farmers and food manufacturers" and a "huge victory for worldwide producers" of gruyere cheese, the U.S....more
The appellants, Interprofession du Gruyère and Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Gruyère, are two consortiums, Swiss and French, that regulate use of the term ‘gruyere’ to refer only to cheeses produced in the Gruyère district...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) recently issued Examination Guide 1-22, Clarification of Examination Evidentiary Standard for Marks Refused as Generic (Guide 1-22), which amends the PTO’s stance on the appropriate...more
At the end of last month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) released a guide clarifying how they were approaching the refusals of applied-for marks that could be generic. In the past, examining attorneys...more
On February 2, in In re: Vox Populi Registry Ltd., the Federal Circuit affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) refusal to register a standard character mark and a stylized mark, both related to the “.sucks”...more
Have you ever been to an indoor cycling class? If so, you most likely have heard the term “spin class,” or referred to the act itself as “spinning.” Mad Dogg Athletics, Inc. would take offense, however, calling such uses...more
Suppose that you want to federally register a trademark that has a domain indicator like “.com” at the end that identifies a source of goods or services related to your business. The trademark may have a first part that is...more
Jones Day's Meredith Wilkes and Anna Raimer discuss 2020's most significant developments in trademark law and preview what's to come in 2021, including possible progress in Washington on the highly anticipated Trademark...more
2020 was a tumultuous year. And while you were busy shifting to online meetings, implementing new measures to keep employees and customers safe, and otherwise adapting to the challenges created by the coronavirus, the U.S....more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued guidance on how it will treat applications to register “generic.com” terms in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 30, 2020 decision in United States Patent and Trademark Office...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office issued Examination Guide 3-20 on Oct. 28 to clarify procedures that trademark examiners should follow in view of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2020 ruling. As we discussed in a previous...more