Trademark owners have a duty to defend their trademarks against possible and actual infringement. Ignore infringers and your trademark rights may evaporate. Defending trademarks, however, is a full time job and not for the weak of heart (or wallet). The beverage industry is a breeding ground of intellectual property disputes and trademark owners aggressively defend […]
Trademark
Amazon Gets More Serious About Infringers
February 9, 2017
Copyright, Intellectual Property, Trademark
If you sell branded products on Amazon.com, you may know that infringement is rampant. You put up a product, it gets popular, and all of a sudden, like a many-headed hydra, other sites spring up selling “your” product at reduced prices. Getting Amazon to remove infringing products can be a challenge even for IP lawyers […]
Ask Dr. Copyright — Louis Vuitton Gets Bagged
January 12, 2017
Ask Dr. Copyright, Trademark
Dear Doc: I understand that it’s sometimes hard to take when someone makes fun of you, but now I have heard that one of the world’s largest brands, LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER, S.A. (LVMH) (owners of, among other brands, Ardbeg, Belvedere, Bodega Numanthia, Cape Mentelle, Chandon, Chandon Argentina, Chandon Australia, Chandon California, Chandon China, Chandon do Brasil, Château […]
The Trademark Adventures of Buck Rogers
November 15, 2016
Trademark
The Buck Rogers comic strip and its many spin-off novellas, films, television series, and toys introduced Americans to the dream and adventure of space travel. Legal conflicts over possession of the rights to Buck Rogers have been more mundane but just as long lived. The comic strip, which debuted in 1929, was developed by Philip Francis […]
99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, 99 Bottles of Beer
September 24, 2016
Trademark
IP lawyers like beer, at least this one does. So, we also like to write about beer trademarks. Here’s one you can drink to. The Irish Times recently reported that the city of Munich has filed a new European Union trademark application for OKTOBERFEST, hoping, we assume, to profit from licensing the name to the countless […]
#copyright; #trademark; #patents; #ip
August 5, 2016
Trademark
Trademarking Hashtags Originating in Twitter as a means of designating keyword search terms, the # (hashtag) has become a ubiquitous symbol of the social media age. As the political season heats up, tweeting has gone wild with political candidates and their supporters exchange 140 character barbs. This hyperactivity has spilled over to print and digital […]
Ask Dr. Copyright … Trademark Rights in ‘Thank You’
July 29, 2016
Trademark
Trademarking Thanks? Dear Doc: My Mom always taught me to be extra-polite. Growing up in the South, I learned to call my elders “Ma’am” and “Sir”, and always to say “Please” and “Thank you”. I guess that the 2Big2Fail crowd was raised differently. I just heard that CitiGroup thinks that it owns “Thank You” and […]
So What Is Craft Beer, Anyway?
July 7, 2016
Trademark
Over the past several years, the question of what’s a “craft beer” and who qualifies to make a craft beer has been a front and center issue among the brewing community. It started when “Macro Brewers” began making “small” batch brews such as “Blue Moon” manufactured and sold by the “Blue Moon Brewing Company,” a […]
Trade secret owners have new Federal rights under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. But what about state law? Is state law still important for trade secret protection? You bet state law is still important. Trade secret owners have the same state trade secret rights that they had before the DTSA. Whenever a trade secret owner […]
On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA” or “Act”). The bill was largely uncontroversial (imagine that), passing the Senate by an 87-0 vote and the House by a 410-2 vote. The DTSA is an important piece of legislation. It is so important that we have decided to focus our […]