(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: The Fall of SUPER HERO – When Trademarks Become Generic
The Briefing: The Fall of SUPER HERO – When Trademarks Become Generic
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: NBA Star Luka Doncic Goes Hard in the Paint and Seeks to Cancel Mom’s Trademark (Part 2)
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: NBA Star Luka Doncic Goes Hard in the Paint and Seeks to Cancel Mom’s Trademark (Part 1)
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - NBA Star Luka Doncic Goes Hard in the Paint and Seeks to Cancel Mom’s Trademark (Part 1)
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - Prince Estate Wants Winery's 'Purple Rain' Trademark Back in the Bottle
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Prince Estate Wants Winery's 'Purple Rain' Trademark Back in the Bottle
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - NCAA Erects Challenge to ‘Vasectomy Mayhem’ Trademark
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: NCAA Erects Challenge to ‘Vasectomy Mayhem’ Trademark
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: SPIN Trademark Has Peloton Wrapped Around the Axel
After nearly 30 years of litigation, a federal court has canceled General Cigar’s U.S. trademarks for COHIBA cigars — all because of a little-known treaty and a Cuban brand once favored by Fidel Castro. What does this mean...more
DOLLAR FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. v. BRITTEX FINANCIAL, INC. [OPINION] - Before Prost, Taranto, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The zone of natural...more
In a precedential decision invoking the “zone of natural expansion” doctrine, on March 19, 2025, the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) cancelling in part registrations for...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
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
In Great Concepts, the court addressed whether Section 14 of the Lanham Act, which permits cancellation of a mark’s registration if “its registration was obtained fraudulently,” permits cancellation due to the owner’s filing...more
In business, trademarks are everything. It's how consumers come to know, love and trust your brand. It's a valuable corporate asset, and many disputes can arise of name rights with the explosion of e-commerce and the...more
In 2021, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancelled Great Concepts, LLC’s trademark registration for the mark DANTANNA’S for restaurant services under Section 14, after finding that counsel for the Registrant committed...more
In a split panel decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board and ruled that a fraudulent declaration under Section 15 of the Lanham Act is not a basis for...more
Suppose that you are a foreign applicant who either files a trademark application, opposition proceeding, or cancellation proceeding with the USPTO. Can this act of filing subject the foreign applicant to service of process...more
On September 17, 2021, in Beasley v. Howard, 14 F.4th 226 (3d Cir. 2021), the Third Circuit joined the Second and Ninth Circuits in ruling that prior trademark cancellation actions in front of the Trademark Trial and Appeal...more
Addressing the preclusive effect of judgments by tribunals with limited jurisdiction, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that trademark cancellation proceedings before the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (TTAB)...more
On September 17, 2021, the Third Circuit held in Beasley v. Howard that trademark cancellation proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) do not have claim preclusive effect against trademark...more
Addressing for the first time whether the Supreme Court of the United States’ recent decision in United States v. Arthrex, Inc. also applied to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the US Court of Appeals for the...more
On December 27, 2020, the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“the Act”) became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. Among other changes, the Act includes important amendments to the Lanham Act...more
As cannabis products become legal in more and more states, commercial interest grows in protecting the trademarks associated with those products. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has maintained its refusal to...more
Trademark and copyright law are in a constant struggle with the right of free expression guaranteed under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. This is unavoidable. Copyright laws were enacted to protect authors of...more
As we noted here last week, the Director of the USPTO filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court requesting that it review the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision, In re Tam. That decision held Section...more
A recent precedential Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision provides valuable guidance on the proper allocation of trademark registration ownership as between a corporate parent and a subsidiary, highlighting the perils...more
In 2015, U.S. courts provided trademark practitioners with several issues to discuss and debate. Identified and summarized below are the top five most discussed issues....more
In Belmora LLC v. Bayer Consumer Care AG,1 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is faced with novel issues about the reach of the Lanham Act. The case arose from Bayer’s filing of a petition to cancel Belmora’s...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, en banc, has ruled that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act precluding “disparaging” trademark registrations is unconstitutional, rejecting the argument that trademark...more