All posts by: Adam Garson

About Adam Garson

When is a chair just a chair (and not a trademark)? The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board” or “TTAB”) recently considered this question in an opinion on whether Herman Miller, Inc. (“Herman Miller”) could claim trademark rights in a famous chair design dating back from the 1940s when Charles and Ray Eames developed a technique for molding […]

First your headlamp failed and then your backup light and then the light on your phone.  It’s pitch black. Not just shadowy black, but absolutely, completely black – so black that the fish have no eyes.  You’re in a limestone cave, deep underground. You’ve been utterly lost for hours.  There are no paths, only the […]

The WIPO website devotes a whole page to the “benefits of the Madrid System”. From it, you can glean four principal advantages: (1) it is equitable, that is, it is available to “small startups” or “large multinational” organizations alike; (2) it is convenient; (3) it is global in reach; and (4) it is cost effective. Let’s examine each […]

Dear Doc: What’s the difference between an “Intellectual Property Attorney” and a “Patent Attorney”?Signed,Thinking of Applying Dear Thinker: You may not know it, but the Doc is BOTH! Under the Patent Law (37 U.S.C. §11.5), a person who wishes to represent others before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)  in patent matters (a […]

National Filing. The first method consists of directly filing a trademark application in the foreign country. This is commonly referred to as a “National Filing.” Typically, your US attorney will retain a trademark attorney in the country where you wish to register your trademark. You provide the foreign attorney with a power of attorney and […]

Food technology has come a long way over the past several decades. Great strides have been made in developing substitutes for meat, dairy, and gluten containing flours. We now have “milk” made from oats and almonds, meat substitutes made from various vegetable based ingredients, and gluten free bakery products made from amaranth, millet, sorghum and, would […]

In its 2020 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy, the United States Trade Representative warns: “Commercial-scale copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting cause significant financial losses for U.S. right holders and legitimate businesses, undermine critical U.S. comparative advantages in innovation and creativity to the detriment of American workers, and pose significant risks to consumer health and safety.” […]

In 2011, H. R. 2511, “Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act” was an attempt by Congress to extend copyright protection to fashion design. The bill died in Congress and never received a vote. To this day, fashion designs remain unprotected under U.S. copyright law. One fashion-related area that has received considerable attention, however, is in the […]

2021 brings new trademark fees. The PTO states: “The overall strategy of the Final Rule is to balance a reasonable and affordable fee schedule with sufficient multi-year revenue to recover the aggregate costs of maintaining the USPTO’s trademark-related operations and accomplishing the USPTO’s trademark-related strategic goals. The Final Rule enables the USPTO to continue to enhance […]

On Sunday, December 27, 2020, President Trump signed into law the $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government funding bill. Included within the massive piece of legislation are a number of new laws specifically addressing intellectual property issues, including the 2020 Trademark Modernization Act (TMA), the Case Act and other copyright related legislation discussed in another article […]