News & Analysis as of

Trademark Litigation Corporate Counsel Trademark Registration

Fish & Richardson

No Space at the Trademark Office for US SPACE FORCE

Fish & Richardson on

In a rare precedential decision involving Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently upheld a denial by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of applications filed for US...more

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

In Limited Cases, Foreign Trademarks Can Affect U.S. Registration Rights

It is a basic tenet of trademark law that rights are jurisdictional. Trademark owners only have rights in the mark in the jurisdictions in which they have registered (or, in some cases, used) the mark....more

Harris Beach Murtha PLLC

Fourth Circuit Confirms: Physical Distance Does Not Avoid Trademark Confusion

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

Smart & Biggar

Upcoming changes to Canada’s trademarks regime: what brand owners and their counsel need to know

Smart & Biggar on

On April 1, 2025, long-awaited amendments to Canada’s Trademarks Act and Trademarks Regulations will come into force. The purpose of the amendments is to discourage abuse of Canada’s trademarks regime and to improve the...more

Jones Day

SkyKick v Sky: UK Supreme Court Confronts Bad Faith in Trade Mark Applications

Jones Day on

The UK Supreme Court has issued a landmark judgment dealing with specific bad faith considerations for trade marks....more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

UK Supreme Court Ruling: Sky Falls in Pivotal Trade Mark Battle with SkyKick

Morrison & Foerster LLP on

The wait is over! The UK Supreme Court has handed down its judgment in the closely followed and long-running litigation between Sky, the well-known television and broadband company, and SkyKick, a lesser-known cloud computing...more

Haug Partners LLP

Federal Circuit Clarifies The Relevance Of Third-Party Trademark Registrations In Determining The Conceptual And Commercial...

Haug Partners LLP on

In a significant decision, the Federal Circuit has clarified the weight given to third-party registrations in determining the strength of the opposer’s mark and has firmly placed the burden of showing non-use of such marks on...more

Fenwick & West LLP

Federal Circuit Turns the Burden on Trademark Owners to Prove Identical Third-Party Marks Are Not in Use

Fenwick & West LLP on

In Spireon, Inc. v. Flex Ltd., No. 2022-1578 (Fed. Cir. June 26, 2023), the Federal Circuit took a surprising turn in which it held that it is the trademark owner’s burden to prove that identical third-party marks put forth...more

Sunstein LLP

The Long Arm of Trademark Law: Where do we draw the line?

Sunstein LLP on

Can a United States court really award tens of millions of dollars in damages for violation of US trademark law under the Lanham Act where the conduct at issue did not even take place in the United States? According to a...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Federal Circuit Court Denies "Lehman Brothers" Trademark for Whiskey

Holland & Knight LLP on

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 1, 2022, issued an order in favor of Barclays Capital Inc. (Barclays) in relation to its opposition to a trademark application for LEHMAN BROTHERS. The court affirmed...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

It’s Not in the Bag: TTAB Refuses to Register Generic Handbag Design

Ending a hard-fought three-year campaign to secure registration of a popular handbag, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Trademark Trial & Appeal Board designated as precedential its decision refusing registration of the...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

“TRUMP TOO SMALL” Trademark Decision Leaves Big Questions

Revisiting jurisprudence touching on the Lanham Act and the First Amendment from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Matal v. Tam and Iancu v. Brunetti, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that applying Sec....more

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP

Federal Circuit Affirms Refusal to Register Generic Top-Level Domain Trademarks

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

PTO Publishes Regulations to Implement Trademark Modernization Act

The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently published its final rules implementing provisions of the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA). Most changes are effective as of December 18, 2021, but certain changes...more

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Second Circuit Upholds Settlement Agreements Among Competitors Not to Bid on Rivals’ Names as Keywords

On June 11, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s administrative order against 1-800 Contacts Inc., the nation's largest online retailer of contact lenses. The...more

Mintz - Trademark & Copyright Viewpoints

The Trademark Modernization Act Establishes New Trademark Cancellation Procedures

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

Fox Rothschild LLP

The TTAB Continues Its Recent Trend Of Failure-To-Function Refusals

Fox Rothschild LLP on

On December 1, 2020, the TTAB continued its recent trend of decisions refusing to register marks on the ground of failure-to-function. In another precedential decision, the TTAB refused Applicant Lee Greenwood’s (“Greenwood”)...more

Blank Rome LLP

Federal Circuit Throws Shade on TTAB’s Treatment of Color Trademarks

Blank Rome LLP on

Pink insulation, green tractors, robins-egg blue jewelry boxes—they all have something in common: recognizable colors that many associate with products. But can such colors be registered as trademarks and, if so, when? On...more

Mintz - Trademark & Copyright Viewpoints

The Masters’ Green Jacket is Now a Registered Trademark

Since 1949, a green jacket has been awarded to the winner of the Masters Tournament, one of golf’s four major championships. Although Augusta National, Inc. had successfully registered the word mark GREEN JACKET as a...more

Carlton Fields

EU Court Rules Cannabis Trademark Unregistrable as Contrary to Public Policy

Carlton Fields on

The General Court of the European Union ruled on December 12 that the Cannabis Store Amsterdam logo was unregistrable as violative of public policy and morality because it would encourage illegal activity. This decision is...more

Hogan Lovells

China Trademarks: 2018 Highlights & 2019 Forecast

Hogan Lovells on

Last year, right holders in China have seen a number of major developments including; a milestone Supreme Court judgment dealing with trademark squatting, new specialized cyberspace courts, a new E-Commerce law, clarification...more

Weintraub Tobin

Consumers Have Standing To Challenge Trademark Registrations

Weintraub Tobin on

The Trademark Trial and Appeals Board recently issued an interesting decision regarding standing to oppose the registration of trademark applications. United Trademark Holdings, Inc. filed for registration of the mark...more

Hogan Lovells

China’s highest court slams trademark squatter, confirming that hoarding trademarks is unlawful

Hogan Lovells on

In a recent judgment, China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”), dealt a significant blow to trademark squatters. The case is noteworthy for several reasons...more

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

The Federal Circuit Vacates and Remands An International Trade Commission Final Determination in A Trademark-Based Investigation

• The Federal Circuit issued a rare precedential decision in an appeal from a trademark- and trade dress-based ITC investigation. • In its decision, the Federal Circuit reiterated that the act of trademark registration does...more

Foley Hoag LLP - Making Your Mark

10 Trademark Cases About Yo Mama

Anna Jarvis led the efforts to establish the first official celebration of Mother’s Day in 1908, during which she honored her own mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, a Civil War-era social activist. But about a dozen years after...more

32 Results
 / 
View per page
Page: of 2

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
- hide
- hide