Export Controls – Party Time!
I know what you’re thinking: “Trademarks and copyrights are fun, but when do we get to the REALLY fun stuff?” Well, loyal reader, wait no longer: I give you…EXPORT CONTROL REGULATIONS!!! No reaction? Well, you might want to reconsider that, since violations of export control regulations can carry severe penalties (criminal penalties can be up […]
“I’ll Have What She’s Having” – Trademark Troubles in Craft Brewing
In case you haven’t been to your local “packie” lately, craft breweries are popping up faster than a hops vine. Occurring in tandem with this proliferation of breweries and quirky beer names, are incidents of breweries clashing over their names and the names of their products. We’re not the first to discuss this phenomenon, but […]
“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” – Evolution of Trademark Coverage Over Time
Recently, I was discussing with a client a topic that I think is often overlooked by businesses. If you’ve been following us for a while, you know we’re [perhaps not surprisingly] big proponents of businesses registering their trademarks at the federal level. Although obtaining a registration is an important part of protecting the goodwill that […]
No “Do-overs”: The Importance of Correctly Identifying Goods/Services in a Trademark Application
Since our last blog post, we’ve been on the lookout for other cautionary tales that highlight some basic aspects of trademark and copyright law. Sadly, it didn’t take long, as highlighted in a recent post from The TTABlog® addressing the importance of getting your description of goods/services right. The application at issue was for the […]
What’s $55 Really Worth (or, “If Only I had a Time Machine…”)
In terms of “return on investment,” the $55 fee of the Copyright Office to register a copyright is hard to beat. Not only is registration generally a prerequisite to enforce a copyright, but failure to promptly register a copyright can significantly impair a copyright owner’s ability to obtain monetary relief in an amount sufficient to […]
The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA)
Sorry, folks, no cheeky title here – this is serious business. Theft of trade secrets is a significant threat to businesses, and the country’s economic growth – by some estimates, trade secret theft and economic espionage cost the U.S. economy tens, and perhaps even hundreds, of billions of dollars each year (see https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/combating-economic-espionage-and-trade-secret-theft). On the […]
Common Copyright Myths & “Don’ts”
Of the areas we focus our practice on, perhaps none is more misunderstood than copyright law. That’s unfortunate, because copyright is the area of IP law that everyday individuals are most likely to run afoul of. With that in mind, we thought it would be helpful to point out some of the most common myths/misconceptions […]
Revival of Abandoned Brands – Like a Phoenix, but with Trademarks!
As discussed in a previous blog post, in the United States use of a trademark is generally required in order to obtain and maintain trademark rights (whether “common law” or a federally-registered). Like all good things, however, use of many trademarks eventually comes to an end. Once-popular brand names go out of fashion, companies are […]
Options for a Statement of Use Deadline – a Poem
Roses are red, violets are blue, when faced with a Statement of Use deadline in an ITU application and some but not all of the applied-for goods/services are in use, what’s one to do? Now that we’re done with THAT, on to the good stuff. Once a trademark application that is based on an “intent-to-use” […]
The End [of EU trademark law as we know it] is Nigh!
O.K., that may be overstating things a bit, but big changes are on the horizon for trademarks in the EU. As background: member nations of the EU maintain their own trademark regulations and registration systems, and are also part of a separate EU body called the “Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market” (“OHIM”), which […]