(Podcast) The Briefing - The Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents: What It Means for Your Brand
Is My Guitar Pedal a Klone or a Counterfeit? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
(Podcast) The Briefing: Trademark Basics – Protecting Names, Logos, and Brands in Entertainment
The Briefing: Trademark Basics - Protecting Names, Logos, and Brands in Entertainment
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
PODCAST: PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
(Podcast) The Briefing: Who Owns WallStreetBets? Trademark Use in Commerce and the Reddit Battle
The Briefing: Who Owns WallStreetBets? Trademark Use in Commerce and the Reddit Battle
Mickey Mouse: un ratón con abogado
(Podcast) The Briefing: Who Owns Jack Nicklaus? Lessons for The Creator Economy From a Brand Battle
(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
How IP Can Fuel Your Startup's Growth
What Were the Cooler Wars? (Part 2) — No Infringement Intended Podcast
Innovation in Compliance: Visionary Leadership with Jackson Calame
The Briefing: Court Drowns Pepperdine's 'Waves' Trademark Battle Against Netflix
(Podcast) The Briefing: Court Drowns Pepperdine's 'Waves' Trademark Battle Against Netflix
The Briefing: The Stanley Cup Clash - A Trademark Battle (Podcast)
The Briefing: The Stanley Cup Clash - A Trademark Battle
(Podcast) The Briefing: Bad Spaniels – Infringement? No. Dilution? Yes
Recent Supreme Court decisions underscore how viewpoint-based refusals of trademark applications are unconstitutional. But can these viewpoint-based refusals survive under the "failure-to-function" doctrine instead?...more
“Scandalous, obscene or immoral” trademarks are not only unregistrable in Canada, but they are also unlawful to adopt in connection with a business “as a trademark or otherwise.” While similar prohibitions have been deemed...more
To guide potential trademark owners and to foster strong protection for trademarks under U.S. law, the Lanham Act; 15 U.S.C. §1052, defines the types of trademarks and service which marks can be registered by whittling away...more
In a case that required the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to articulate the boundary between the Lanham Act and the First Amendment when the trademark in question is the name of a political party, the Court found...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has granted a limited appeal in Pittsburgh’s challenge to a Pennsylvania court ruling that the city’s tax on visiting athletes and performers is unconstitutional. ...more
Referred to as the “names clause”, the Lanham Act prohibits registration of a mark that consists of or comprises a name that identifies a particular living individual without written consent.1 This includes full names,...more
There has long been a tension between the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and federal trademark law. In two relatively recent Supreme Court trademark cases, the First Amendment won, enabling...more
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in seven cases: United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477: This case concerns the constitutionality of state laws banning gender-affirming medical care for...more
Vidal v. Elster, 602 U.S. (2024) - In a landmark decision affirming longstanding principles of trademark law, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Lanham Act’s names clause does not violate the First Amendment,...more
On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Vidal v. Elster, a case that pitted trademark law against the First Amendment’s free speech protections. While the Court unanimously upheld the Patent and...more
In Vidal v. Elster, a unanimous Supreme Court of the United States reversed the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision, holding that the Lanham Act’s names clause does not violate the First Amendment or...more
In a landmark decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the Lanham Act’s provision that prohibits the registration of trademarks consisting of, or...more
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Vidal v. Ester, 602 U.S. ___ (2024) that the federal prohibition on registering trademarks that identify a living individual without their consent does not violate the First...more
The June 13, 2024, U.S. Supreme Court decision in Vidal v. Elster made waves in the trademark community. All of the Court’s decisions are significant, and this matter was of particular interest because the decision marked the...more
In Vidal v. Elster, the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of Section 2(c) of the Lanham Act, which prohibits the registration as a trademark or service mark of any “name, portrait, or signature identifying a...more
In a recent unanimous decision in the case Vidal v. Elster (602 U.S. ___ (2024)), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the refusal to register a federal trademark for the phrase “Trump Too Small” based on the fact that the Lanham...more
Of the Supreme Court opinions issued today, the one that will draw the greatest public attention is Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, unanimously holding that the pro-life organizational...more
Yesterday, in Vidal v. Elster, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 2(c) of the Trademark Act (15 U.S.C. § 1052(c)), which prohibits registration of a mark that “[c]onsists of or...more
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the case of Vidal v. Elster to determine whether the USPTO’s refusal to register the trademark “Trump Too Small” violates the applicant’s First Amendment rights. Scott Hervey...more
In what appears to be a shift from prior decisions striking down portions of the federal Lanham Act on First Amendment grounds, the U.S. Supreme Court seems likely to rule against a trademark applicant seeking to register a...more
During the 2016 presidential debate, Senator Marco Rubio taunted Donald Trump for having “small hands.” Now, more than seven years later, progressive activist Steve Elster is continuing his fight to trademark the phrase...more
In Ratliff v. Wycliffe Assoc., Inc., No. 6:22-cv-1185-PGB-RMN, 2023 WL 3688082 (M.D. Fla. May 26, 2023), the plaintiff, a software developer, sued the defendant, a Bible translation ministry, for sex discrimination under...more
The question of whether a would-be trademark, “TRUMP TOO SMALL,” warrants a First Amendment exception to the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering a living person’s name as a trademark without that person’s permission has...more
The Supreme Court granted certiorari and will review the Federal Circuit’s opinion that Section 2(c) of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional as applied to a trademark for the term TRUMP TOO SMALL. The TRUMP TOO SMALL trademark...more