(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]
The Briefing: The Supreme Court Limits the Reach of The Lanham Act
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s jury verdict that found trade dress infringement and liability under state deceptive practices law, and the court’s order entering a nationwide...more
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a decision confirming that using similar names for businesses in the same industry can result in a likelihood of confusion despite the physical distance of the entities. In...more
BULLSHINE DISTILLERY LLC v. SAZERAC BRANDS, LLC - Before Moore, Reyna and Taranto. Appeal from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. In assessing genericness, the TTAB considers how the mark was understood at the time of...more
In Re R.S. Lipman Brewing Co., LLC, 2025 WL 1099603 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 14, 2025) - Be careful when selecting a name for your product, otherwise you might find yourself cooked at the United States Patent and Trademark Office...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board’s dismissal of an opposition to the registration of the marks IVOTERS and IVOTERS.COM while also noting that the US Patent &...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a district court’s decision finding no infringement that focused on only the geographic distance between the physical locations of the two users without considering the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Trademark Trial & Appeal Board decision to partially cancel trademarks, ruling that an opposition challenger could not use the zone of natural expansion doctrine to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Trademark Trial & Appeal Board rulings, finding that a previously generic term was not generic at the time registration was sought because at that time the mark, as...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a $56 million trial verdict in a trademark dispute, finding that the evidence supported the jury’s conclusion that a beer company’s rebranding of one its beers infringed a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated an award of attorneys’ fees for reanalysis, explaining that the district court’s finding that the case was “exceptional” under the Lanham Act was based on policy...more
Underscoring its faith in a jury’s competency to use its “common sense and experience” in evaluating evidence, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants in a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a senior party mark but found that the district court committed clear error in finding that a similar junior party mark was valid. The Fifth Circuit also found that the...more
40 years ago, I was the new kid in 6th grade – truly a terrible age in a young girl’s life to try and “fit in” at a new elementary school in a small town. But, one of my best memories from that year was procuring my first...more
After a de novo review, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s motion to dismiss, finding the competing marks sufficiently similar to avoid dismissal, and the...more
In a trademark infringement and breach of contract case involving real estate companies with a shared name, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the trademark owner, including...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that liability under the Copyright Act and liability under the Lanham Act are not mutually exclusive and that liability under the Copyright Act does not negate trade dress...more
Addressing for the first time the question of enforceability of a priority of right in a trademark granted pursuant to the Madrid Protocol where the registrant’s actual use in commerce began after the allegedly infringing...more
Examining whether a registered mark and a domain name were confusingly similar under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of an initial confusion trademark complaint, finding that the plaintiff alleged a plausible claim of trademark infringement under the Lanham...more
Addressing a novel issue regarding when confusion must occur for it to be actionable, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit concluded that initial-interest confusion was a viable infringement theory. Select Comfort...more
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that the use of nearly identical marks by a military order, a related foundation and a funding organization was likely to cause...more
Does the Lanham Act require a plaintiff to show a likelihood of confusion to prevail on a counterfeiting claim? And if so, should the court simply compare the marks at issue, or look beyond them to the products themselves and...more
Referring to the act of counterfeiting as “hard core” or “first degree” trademark infringement, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the first time confirmed that the Lanham Act requires a likelihood of confusion...more
In finding a fair use defense and no “likelihood of confusion” in a cosmetics trademark infringement dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit also considered, as an issue of first impression, whether the Seventh...more
Addressing the standard of review for attorneys’ fee awards under the Lanham Act, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied Highmark’s abuse-of-discretion standard, affirmed the district court’s exceptional-case...more