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 mark PITCHINGSMART and listed the services [for which registration was sought] as “entertainment in the nature of baseball games,” though the Applicant actually meant to apply for different services.  After immediately discovering the error post-filing, the applicant, who did not actually offer “baseball games” services, […]

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 acquired and absorbed/re-branded, or use of a brand simply stops.  Are such trademarks lost to the sands of time?  What about nostalgia’s continual reinforcement of the cliché “What’s old is new?”  Can old brands be revived and, if they can, who can do so?  We’ll […]

In the past week, there’s been a lot of hullabaloo about someone attempting to file a U.S. trademark application for registration of the term “SEO.” The applicant in question here has identified a long litany of advertising related services in connection with which the SEO mark has been used. As surely as the phases of the moon change, I see some post in the blogosphere about a joker who is trying to “trademark”* a common industry term. Fear not, good friends, there is little to worry about in such cases. I’ll attempt to explain why. First of all, simply applying for a […]