“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

What’s a ‘Specimen of Use’?

Don’t worry, it’s not as gross as it sounds. As described in an earlier post, trademark rights in the United States are based on use of a mark in commerce in connection with particular goods and/or services. Also unlike most foreign countries, the US requires proof of use of to federally register a trademark (except […]

Someone is using the exact same mark as me. I’m suing them!

As one of my law school professors used to say, “Well, wait a minute.”  As in all areas of the law, success in a trademark lawsuit is anything but a given, no matter how “airtight” a case you think you have.  There are a variety of factors involved in deciding whether to institute formal litigation […]

Go West (and East, North or South), Young Brand. Part 2 – Planning Ahead

We can’t take it any longer. We HAVE to tell you more about filing foreign trademark applications, if only to answer the question that we are asked the most frequently regarding it (besides “How much will it cost?”). “Why? I only offer my products/services in the U.S.” When considering whether filing foreign trademark applications is […]

What’s an ‘Office Action?’

As mentioned in an earlier post “[M]uch of a trademark attorney’s time is spent … preparing and submitting arguments to the U.S. Trademark Office (or foreign trademark offices) that respond to a refusal on the grounds that a mark is generic or merely descriptive.”  In the U.S., the refusal mentioned comes in the form of […]