All posts by: Adam Garson

About Adam Garson

The Notorious Lizzie Borden Ax Murders Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. — Anonymous And so begins our trademark tale at the site of the 1892 notorious ax murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie Borden, Andrew Borden’s daughter, […]

The United States trademark system is a “use” based system.  Using your trademark bestows upon you the benefits of trademark ownership whether you register your trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) or not. If you don’t register it, you still have trademark rights but only for your particular goods and services […]

There isn’t a singular, unified “international trademark system” in the sense of a global organization that governs trademarks worldwide. There are, however, international frameworks and treaties that facilitate trademark protection enforcement across multiple jurisdictions. There is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the Madrid System, and various regional trademark systems such as the European Union […]

Strong brands are designed to evoke emotional connections between brand and consumer.  That’s why brand owners are eager to leverage “nostalgia,” a sentimental longing for the past, to create deep and more meaningful relationships with their audience. Nostalgia marketing is very powerful. It can evoke emotions, trust and loyalty by “tapping into the positive memories and […]

Trademark lawyers are not branding or marketing consultants. But that is not to say that trademark lawyers should not be involved in the branding and marketing process. Indeed, whether clients are big or small, embarking on a branding strategy that may cause confusion in the marketplace is a waste of resources and could potentially lead […]

This month we’re going to take a look at something really practical: keyword advertising. Keyword advertising is a digital marketing strategy where businesses target specific words or phrases—keywords—relevant to their products or services. The goal is to have advertisements appear in search engine results or on websites when someone searches for or reads content containing […]

Over the years, we have written about many trademark-related concepts and many times we have referenced the consequence of “abandonment,” referring to the penalty that a trademark owner may suffer for not adhering to trademark formalities. But what does it mean for a trademark to go abandoned and under what circumstances does it occur? What Causes Trademark […]

By now, we are all familiar with the term “deepfake.” If you are not, the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language defines “deepfake” as a “video that has been digitally manipulated to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that of another, often used maliciously to show someone doing something that he or she did not do.”  Over a year […]

The Olympic Rings The modern Olympics is replete with symbols, many of which are wrongly ascribed to the ancient games. The most obvious is the five interlocking Olympic rings, which were “invented” in 1913 by Pierre de Coubertin, then-President of the International Olympic Committee. Some authors have ascribed the rings to an ancient inscription on […]

Policing trademarks is as important as registering them.  Policing requires that you monitor the world of commerce to ensure that others are not using your marks — or confusingly similar marks — and, if so, that you take immediate action against the infringers. There is little point in owning a trademark if you are willing to […]