Is My Guitar Pedal a Klone or a Counterfeit? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
(Podcast) The Briefing: Sinking the Rogers Test? What Pepperdine’s Lawsuit Could Mean for Hollywood
The Briefing: Sinking the Rogers Test? What Pepperdine’s Lawsuit Could Mean for Hollywood
(Podcast) The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
(Podcast) The Briefing: Influencer Fail – ALO Yoga & Influencers Named in $150M Class Action Lawsuit for FTC Violations
(Podcast) The Briefing: Trademark Mayhem – Lady Gaga Gets Sued for Trademark Infringement
The Briefing: Trademark Mayhem – Lady Gaga Gets Sued for Trademark Infringement
The Briefing: Everyone Loves the HBO Series 'White Lotus,' Except Duke University
SCOTUS and federal court rulings on TTAB decisions on granting trademarks and trademark renewals; Netflix settling an anticipated defamation case with a disclaimer and donation
Tag, You’re Sued: Graffiti Artists Sue Over Use of Their Tags
(Podcast) The Briefing: Tag, You’re Sued: Graffiti Artists Sue Over Use of Their Tags
The IP of Everything Podcast - Episode 22 - The IP of Dog Toys
Roundup of 2023 Entertainment Law Cases: Analysis SAG/AFTRA and WGA contracts, No Parody of Iconic Sneaker, AI Copyright Highlights China vs US law; SCOTUS Bad Spaniel and Warhol/Prince.
The Briefing: Once Upon A Time – SCOTUS Rejects Trademark Infringement Claim Against Quentin Tarantino Film
(Podcast) The Briefing: Once Upon A Time – SCOTUS Rejects Trademark Infringement Claim Against Quentin Tarantino Film
(Podcast) The Briefing: SCOTUS to Determine if USPTO Refusal to Register TRUMP TOO SMALL is Unconstitutional
The Briefing: SCOTUS to Determine if USPTO Refusal to Register TRUMP TOO SMALL is Unconstitutional
The Briefing: The Supreme Court Limits the Reach of The Lanham Act [PODCAST]
Nike and Sneaker Customizer Lace Up a Settlement - On June 18, 2025, Nike, Inc. (“Nike”) and Dominic Ciambrone (“Ciambrone”), founder of the shoe customization outfit, The Shoe Surgeon, entered into a confidential...more
IP cases in the cannabis industry are lighting up court dockets more and more. In a new case with potential for serious baggage, Kinzie Advanced Polymers, LLC (“Kinzie”) filed a federal lawsuit against a group of...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the test for determining whether a word mark is generic also applies to color marks....more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated and remanded a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for trade dress infringement and unfair competition, finding that the district court erred in requiring the...more
Addressing this case for the third time, the US District Court for the District of Arizona found on remand that Jack Daniel’s was entitled to a permanent injunction after finding that VIP Products’ “Bad Spaniels” dog toy...more
In the lawsuit brought against them for using visual artists' work to teach their large language model, and producing near-identical copies in response to prompts, Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway AI moved to...more
The Second Circuit issued a ruling on May 28, 2024, in a trade dress case, affirming the district court's decision that Redemption Whiskey diluted the trademark and trade dress rights of Bulleit Whiskey since Redemption's...more
In BBK Tobacco & Foods LLP v. Cent. Coast Agric., Inc., 97 F.4th 668 (9th Cir. 2024), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that federal district courts have power to adjudicate trademark applications pursuant to the Lanham...more
Explore the legal intricacies of dog toy trademarks such as Chewy Vuitton and Bad Spaniels. Uncover key cases, including a pivotal Supreme Court showdown, with implications for both canines and intellectual property at large....more
When a retail brand has a consistent, unique look and seeks enforcement against a too-similar competitor or a brash counterfeiter, trade dress protection under the Lanham Act provides the muscle. But part of what makes trade...more
Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on comedic freedom of speech and parodistic liberties (think Weird Al Yankovic and Aqua’s Barbie Girl hit song), a pet toy maker decided to create a chewable, squeaky dog toy shaped like...more
The US Supreme Court rejected First Amendment defenses raised by the maker of whiskey bottle-shaped dog chew toys branded BAD SPANIELS based on claims of trademark infringement and dilution of JACK DANIEL’S marks. ...more
The Bottom Line - The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided that, when using another’s trademark “as a designation of source for the infringer’s own goods,” one is not entitled to a First Amendment defense even if the use...more
In the Public Interest is excited to present a miniseries examining notable decisions recently issued by the United States Supreme Court. The first episode in the miniseries welcomes WilmerHale Partner Thomas Saunders, who...more
The U.S. Supreme Court provided clarification on the application of the Rogers test in relation to Jack Daniels v. VIP Products. Scott Hervey and Jamie Lincenberg talk about this ruling on this episode of The Briefing by the...more
The Bad Spaniels and MetaBirkin cases clarify that artistic expression is no foolproof defense to trademark infringement. Brand owners welcomed the decision the US Supreme Court rendered in Jack Daniel's Properties Inc....more
Thank you for reading the June 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we begin a three-part series that closely examines ways to lose trademark rights; share an article that examines the...more
On June 8, 2023, brand owners breathed a sigh of relief with the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling consistent with prior jurisprudence that potential infringers of a famous trademark are not precluded from liability by merely...more
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, vacated a decision by the Ninth Circuit that in effect barred trademark infringement and dilution claims against the use of a trademark that parodies the plaintiff’s trademark....more
Whether you operate a large e-commerce company on Amazon, a specialized artisan store on Shopify or Etsy, or a local t-shirt company, all brands producing products resembling famous marks should consider the implications of...more
The United States Supreme Court unanimously sided with Jack Daniel’s in a trademark infringement dispute with dog toy manufacturer VIP Products over a poop-themed, chewy dog toy, in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP...more
On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision held that a trademark claim concerning “a squeaky, chewable dog toy designed to look like a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey” which, as a play on words, turns the words...more
On June 8, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products, a case “about dog toys and whiskey”—items that, as Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the Court, “seldom appear[] in the same sentence.” Whiskey-maker...more
On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated decision in Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, No. 22-148 (U.S.). The decision left intact existing legal protections for the use of trademarks...more
I. Introduction - The test for trademark and service mark infringement first set forth in Rogers v. Grimaldi, has played an increasingly significant role in challenges to the titles and contents of creative works since...more