How to Pick a Trademark that Won’t be Rejected by the USPTO At Lipton, Weinberger & Husick, we spend a lot of time reviewing office actions issued to clients who filed trademarks on their own or with a trademark service like LegalZoom or Trademarkia. Registration services provide only the bare essentials when it comes to […]
Trademark
The Washington Redskins NFL team has been fighting for years to maintain its registered trademarks containing the term REDSKINS. Its on and off again fight has been hotly debated in public, press and the courts. Finally, the United States Supreme Court has weighed in. Funny enough, the case before them was not that of the Redskins but […]
Is Google Guilty of “Genericide”?
June 9, 2017
Intellectual Property, Trademark
Is Google Guilty of “Genericide”? Mr. Chris Gillespie must have thought he had a brilliant idea when he registered multiple domain names that included the term “Google,” such as “googledisney.com,” “googleBarackObama.net,” “Googlenewtvs.com” and others. Did he truly believe that Google would not sue him? Or was this part of a grander scheme? Think about the […]
Late Breaking News: Ghostbusters Prevails Over Day of the Dead After Initial Defeat If you’re a vodka connoisseur, you probably know that Dan Aykroyd of Saturday Night Live, the Blues Brothers, and Ghostbusters fame partnered with another artist and Globefill, Inc. to manufacture and market vodka packaged in a skull shaped bottle and labeled as Crystal […]
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 […]
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 […]