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Trademark Litigation Corporate Counsel United States Patent and Trademark Office

Fish & Richardson

No Space at the Trademark Office for US SPACE FORCE

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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

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

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Federal Circuit Overturns Fifty Years of TTAB Precedent

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The Federal Circuit recently released an eye-catching opinion in Great Concepts, LLC v. Chutter, Inc., — F. 4th –, Case No. 2022-1212, 2023 WL 6854647 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 18, 2023). The panel of three judges held, in a...more

Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, LLC

If a Good is not a Good, then a Trademark is not a Trademark

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) adopted a new rule for evaluating whether non-syndicated news columns are “goods in trade” under the Lanham Act in In re The New York Times Company, a precedential opinion issued on...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

2023 IP Outlook: Developments in Trademark and Copyright Process and Procedure

Throughout 2022, the procedural rules of the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the newly formed Copyright Claims Board (CCB) underwent several developments. The PTO outlined a new administrative process for addressing...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Court Uncorks New Way to Serve Trademark Complaints

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The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that Section 1051(e) of the Lanham Act permits a plaintiff in a district court case to serve a complaint against a foreign defendant via the Director of the US Patent &...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Federal Circuit Court Denies "Lehman Brothers" Trademark for Whiskey

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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

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

Fox Rothschild LLP

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

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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

UB Greensfelder LLP

Walmart Burned by the Jury in Trademark Infringement Suit

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Earlier this month, a federal jury in North Carolina hit Walmart with a $95.5 million verdict for its willful infringement of Variety Stores, Inc.’s “BACKYARD” trademarks. The jury awarded $45.5 million as a reasonable...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

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

What’s That Sound? It Might Just Be a Trademark.

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Trademarks are not only words or logos, but can come in many other forms, including sounds. In the words of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in the case In re Gen. Electric Broad. Co., 199 USPQ 560, 563 (TTAB 1978),...more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Federal Judge vs. TTAB – Trademark Battle over Bear Bryant’s Houndstooth Hat

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The case of The Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama and Paul W. Bryant, Jr. v. Houndstooth Mafia Enterprises LLC et al. showcases an unusual clash between a federal judge and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board...more

Akerman LLP - Marks, Works & Secrets

TTAB Makes Double Brown Ale Open to Nut Sack Mark

In a ruling bound to please 15 year-old boys everywhere, the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) reversed the Examining Attorney’s refusal to register the trademark NUT SACK DOUBLE BROWN ALE (in standard character...more

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