Tag: United States

The DuPont Factors for Trademark Registration

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Copyright, Trademarks, United States
By: Daniel H. Bliss Suppose you have filed a trademark application to register a trademark that identifies a source of goods/services for your business. During examination of the trademark application, the United States Patent and Trademark Office initially refused registration because of an alleged likelihood of confusion with a registered mark. What are the DuPont … Continue Reading

Searching for Civility in U.S. Trademarks  

By Gregory (Greg) J. Krabacher on Posted in Branding, Copyright, Legislation, Trademarks, United States
After more than a hundred years of settled U.S. trademark policy, an interesting problem has developed for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). How to square the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions striking down parts of the federal Lanham Act with the USPTO’s historical rejection of immoral, scandalous, or disparaging trademarks?  Whether by … Continue Reading

New SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract Is Now in Effect 

By Samantha G. Rothaus of Davis+Gilbert LLP, Jordan Thompson of Davis+Gilbert LLP, Howard Weingrad of Davis+Gilbert LLP and James L. Johnston of Davis+Gilbert LLP on Posted in Advertising & Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, Branding, Counterfeit Goods, Legislation, Online Content, Privacy Compliance, United States
Authors: James Johnston, Samantha G. Rothaus, Jordan M. Thompson and Howard R. Weingrad.  SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) have reached agreement on a new Commercials Contract, which is now officially in effect. Notably, the deal was reached without a strike — a rare outcome in recent entertainment-related collective bargaining where disputes, particularly over … Continue Reading

Can Non-English Language Trademarks Be Refused Registration Based on the Foreign Equivalents Doctrine?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Branding, Copyright, Europe, Foreign Protection, Trademarks, United States
By Dan Bliss of Howard & Howard Suppose that you want to register your trademark that is in a non-English language on goods or services for your business in the United States. Will your non-English language trademark need to be translated to English to determine its registrability? If so, can your English translation trademark be … Continue Reading

The Rise of Class Actions in Influencer Marketing: What Brands Need to Know To Protect Themselves 

By Paavana L. Kumar of Davis+Gilbert LLP, Jordan Thompson of Davis+Gilbert LLP, Amy Marcus of Davis + Gilbert and Allison Fitzpatrick of Davis+Gilbert LLP on Posted in Advertising & Marketing, Branding, Copyright, Counterfeit Goods, Online Content, United States
Authors: Allison Fitzpatrick, Paavana Kumar, Jordan Thompson and Amy Marcus.  Class actions targeting prominent brands using influencers to advertise their products on social media are on the rise, accusing brands and their influencers of failing to properly disclose paid endorsements.  A series of recent cases targeting brands and their influencers rely on a similar set … Continue Reading

Can Trademarks Be Too Descriptive for Registration?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Branding, Copyright, Legislation, Patents, Protection & Enforcement, Trademarks
By Daniel H. Bliss Suppose you want to register a trademark that identifies a source of goods/services for your business. What if the trademark describes an ingredient, quality, feature, function, characteristic, or purpose of your goods/services? Can your trademark be too descriptive to obtain a registration from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office? The answer … Continue Reading

Charting a Course on AI Policy: the U.S. Copyright Office Speaks! 

By Gregory (Greg) J. Krabacher on Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Legislation, Privacy Compliance, Protection & Enforcement, Trademarks, United States
By Gregory J. Krabacher, Epstein Becker Green  Recently, the U.S. Copyright Office published the second of an intended three-part report entitled “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence.” Here are those three parts:   Collectively, this report – I’ll refer to it here as the “AI Report” –  is intended to provide the Copyright Office’s perspective on fundamental questions … Continue Reading

Can U.S. Trademark Registrations Be Cancelled for Genericness?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Branding, Copyright, Legislation, Patents, Protection & Enforcement, Trademarks
By Daniel H. Bliss 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 genericness? If so, what is the appropriate time period for assessing whether a trademark is generic? Is … Continue Reading

Katy v Katie: The importance of reputation and early brand protection  

By Jessica Bell of Kalus Kenny Intelex on Posted in Australia, Legislation, Trademarks, United States
By Jessica Bell, Lawyer – Kalus Kenny Intelex, Melbourne, Australia Pop star Katy Perry has successfully appealed a Federal Court ruling over the use of an Australian designer’s trade mark registration for the words KATIE PERRY. The recent decision by the Full Court of the Federal Court unanimously overturned Justice Brigitte Markovic’s findings in Taylor … Continue Reading

New Year’s Resolutions?: Intellectual Property Questions That May–Or May Not–Get Decided In 2025

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Legislation, Online Content, Protection & Enforcement, United States
As we head into a new year after a US election year, we are sure to see two things in the media, all kinds of articles on New Year’s Resolutions and all kinds of articles on what we can anticipate occurring in the inaugural year of the new administration.  So I thought that I would … Continue Reading

THAT’S NOT TRUE: Thoughts, Novel or Not, On Truth, Context, & Defamation

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Case Studies, Protection & Enforcement, United States
Defamation cases are hard ones in the real world. Recent US matters involving Dominion Voting,  Sara Palin, and even Cheetos show that these cases continue to interest the general public as well as legal cognoscenti. Resolving these lawsuits is dependent on understanding concepts of truth, accuracy, fact, opinion, and all manner of issues that define … Continue Reading

Can Design Patents Be Invalidated?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Legislation, Patent Infringement, Patents, United States
Suppose you have a design for an ornamental appearance of an article and start producing the article. Subsequently, you receive notice from an owner of a design patent that you are infringing their patent. You conduct a prior art search and find some references related to the design. Can you invalidate the design patent through … Continue Reading

One Sheet To Rap Sheet: Evaluating Proposed Federal Rule For Using Lyrics & Creative Writing To Prove Crimes

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Legislation, Protection & Enforcement, United States
In a list of Music Industry Terms Every Artist Should Know, “One Sheet” is defined as a “single-page document that highlights an artist’s new music and summarizes their bio, stats, and achievements. It’s given to media, promoters, or anyone else who can further the artist’s career in some way — for example, by hiring them … Continue Reading

Can a Slide Show Be Considered a Printed Publication to Prevent Patentability?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Case Studies, Legislation, Patent Infringement, Patents, Privacy Compliance, Protection & Enforcement, United States
Suppose you have an invention and disclose it in a slide show to an audience attending a conference. Can this slide show be considered a printed publication to prevent the invention from being novel and patented? Are there protective measures that can be taken to prevent the slide show from being considered a printed publication? … Continue Reading

Seedlings of Ideas For Artificial Intelligence: Learning From A Genetic Resources/Traditional Knowledge Treaty, The Plant Patent Act, & Nico Tanner

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Foreign Protection, Legislation, Patents, Protection & Enforcement, Trade Secrets, United States
The World Intellectual Property Organization announced on May 24, 2024, a treaty on intellectual property, genetic resources, and associated traditional knowledge that was twenty-five years in the making.  As WIPO’s press release noted, “[n]egotiations for this Treaty began at WIPO in 2001, initiated in 1999 with a proposal by Colombia, where discussions were notable for … Continue Reading

IP ├ IP???: The Logic Of Election Year Legal Disputes Over Proprietary Intangibles

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Copyright, Legislation, Privacy Compliance, Trade Secret Protection, Trademarks, United States
Title? Typo? Cryptic code? Equation? Really it is a combination of three of the four. In other words, it is not a typo (You can look elsewhere in this piece for those). One key to understanding the reference above is the mathematical logic symbol ├, which is known as the “’turnstile’…because of its resemblance to a … Continue Reading

Should Disclaimers Always Be Made in U.S. Trademark Applications?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Case Studies, Protection & Enforcement, Trademarks, United States
Suppose you have a pending U.S. trademark application for your trademark on goods or services for your business and a term or wording in the trademark is descriptive of your goods or services. During the examination of your trademark application, the examining attorney refuses registration because the term is merely descriptive of your goods or services … Continue Reading

Can U.S. Trademark Registrations Be Strengthened Against Invalidation?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Case Studies, Trademarks, United States
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 it being invalid? Can you file anything to strengthen your trademark registration against invalidation? The answer is YES! if the trademark … Continue Reading

The Good Get: Interviews, The Predicates Of Copyright Ownership, & Divorcing Subjects From Owning Copyright Content

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Copyright, United States
“Headlines” and “titles” are related, sometimes interchangeable, items appearing atop news stories. But, in this space, headlines are usually a source of inspiration (so we can write about intellectual property issues that may interest more than just IP attorneys), and titles a bit of fun (so we can draw in those looking for a bit … Continue Reading

Small Entity Status vs. Micro Entity Status for Patent Applications in the U.S.

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Patents, United States
Suppose you have an inventor or applicant who asks you to file a patent application in the U.S. However, the applicant has limited financial resources for filing the patent application. Should you claim small entity status or micro entity status for the applicant at the time of filing the patent application? The answer depends on … Continue Reading

With Friends Like These: Copyright Implications Of Novelists Drawing Inspiration From The Real Lives They Cross

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Copyright, Famous Marks, Trademarks, United States
Fiction writing has a curious claim on truth.  We learn this at the youngest age, listening to fairy tales when the child in us “intuitively comprehends that, although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue …”  Bettelheim, The Uses Of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales  (at 73).  We hear this in … Continue Reading

Maybe Duct Tape Can’t Fix Everything: Slippery Standards As Copyright Goes Bananas

By James P. Flynn of Epstein Becker Green on Posted in Case Studies, Copyright, Protection & Enforcement, United States
Whether one focuses on the word’s connotation of silliness or excitement, or maybe even anger, or analogizes to the raucous and rhymingly-named team from Savannah that makes up its own baseball rules, US copyright law is currently going a little “bananas.” From ongoing debates about the human element (or requirement) of authorship to debates over what … Continue Reading

Can You Use Color Drawings or Photographs in Utility Patent Applications?

By Daniel H. Bliss of Howard & Howard on Posted in Patents, United States
Suppose that you have an invention disclosure for a utility invention that you want to protect.  When you review the invention disclosure, you notice that the inventor has only supplied color drawings or photographs of the invention.  Can you file the utility patent application with the color drawings or photographs?  The answer is YES! if … Continue Reading
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