Trademarks and Trade Dress

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On March 31, 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it is permitting trademark applicants to request extensions of the time allowed to file certain documents and to pay certain fees due to the ongoing COVID-19 emergency in the United States.  USPTO director Andrei Iancu has exercised temporary authority granted to him under Section 12004(a) of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) signed into law on March 27.  The USPTO remains open for the filing of trademark and TTAB documents and fees.
Continue Reading USPTO Permitting Trademark Applicants to Extend Certain Deadlines Due to COVID-19

On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law.  The CARES Act is a $2 trillion economic stimulus and rescue package designed to mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, which has resulted in a level of societal and economic disruption that is unprecedented in living memory.  Included in the bill is a temporary authorization to the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during the pandemic to toll, waive, adjust, or modify any timing deadline under the patent or trademark laws.  While the USPTO Director has not pointed to any specific change that will be made under the new authorization, it is possible that at least some timing deadlines will be modified to accommodate hardships faced by stakeholders during this crisis.
Continue Reading Congress Gives Patent and Trademark Office Temporary Authorization to Move Deadlines in Light of COVID-19 Pandemic

We previously wrote about California Senate Bill 206, the “Fair Pay to Play Act,” back in April, and now Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed that bill into law.[1] The law becomes effective on January 1, 2023. After numerous revisions to the bill since our last post, here is a quick look at the final product.

The new Fair Pay to Play Act allows California student-athletes to earn compensation from licensing their name and image and to obtain professional representation by lawyers and agents to assist with that effort, all without losing scholarship eligibility or amateur status under the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s (NCAA) Division I and II eligibility criteria. Importantly, the law specifically prohibits colleges, athletic associations and intercollegiate conferences from paying such compensation to prospective student-athletes.
Continue Reading California’s Fair Pay to Play Act: This is Only The First Quarter

On May 2, 2019, the United States Trademark Office issued new Examination Guidelines for goods and services associated with cannabis and cannabis-derived products and services legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.[1] This crack in the federal armor against the cannabis economy opens the door for the federal registration of trademark rights and is an important step toward normalizing the nation’s laws governing cannabis and cannabis-related business activities in states where such products are legal.
Continue Reading The U.S. Trademark Office Opens The Door to Registering Certain Cannabis Trademarks

Federal district courts continue to apply the Supreme Court’s ruling in B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Indus., Inc., 135 S.Ct. (2015) with unpredictable results. The latest such example comes from the Southern District of New York, where Judge Buchman, in reliance on B&B Hardware, precluded the defendant from contesting likelihood of confusion. Cesari S.R.L. v. Peju Province Winery L.P., 1:17-cv-00873-NRB (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2017).
Continue Reading Cesari S.R.L. v. Peju Province Winery L.P.: Relying on Supreme Court Precedent, District Court Holds that Trademark Trial & Appeal Board Finding of Likelihood of Confusion has Preclusive Effect

In a ruling that neatly illustrates some of the challenges a company is likely to face when trying to enforce trademark rights in an advertising tagline, a federal judge in the Northern District of California recently denied a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to enjoin Yelp’s use of a trademarked tagline.
Continue Reading Consumers Are Unlikely to Confuse Yelp with a Local Property Management Company Using the Same Tagline in Ads, Court Rules

This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit joined a majority of appellate courts that have rejected rigid tests for attorneys’-fees awards in favor of flexible discretion at the district court level.  The Ninth Circuit’s pre-Octane Fitness rulings provided a safe-harbor for litigants: fees were only to be awarded in instances of “malicious, fraudulent, deliberate or willful” infringement or where a frivolous case was brought or maintained in bad faith.  That standard has been discarded and replaced by a different, more general test that asks whether the case stands out in terms of its strength or unreasonableness in the way it was litigated.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Retires Fee-Award Standard, Imports Octane Fitness to Trademark Cases

The Supreme Court agreed on September 29 to consider whether a provision of the Lanham Act that allows the USPTO to refuse to register “disparaging” trademarks violates the constitutional right to free speech.  The case is Lee v. Tam (Docket No. 15-1293).
Continue Reading Lee v Tam

Does your company’s wholly-owned subsidiary own trademarks in its own name?  Has your company acquired any companies that own trademarks?  If so, your company’s use of those trademarks will not prevent cancellation of those trademark registrations unless you have proper trademark license agreements in place.  This is exactly what happened to Floorco Enterprises, LLC’s NOBLE HOUSE trademark registration.  In a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) cancelled Floorco’s trademark registration because only Floorco’s parent company was using the trademark and there was no trademark license agreement in place between Floorco and its parent company.
Continue Reading Parent Company Furnishes Cancellation of Subsidiary’s Trademark Registration

In a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) held that the filing of a cancellation petition before the five-year anniversary mark of a registration tolls Trademark Act Section 14 for purposes of adding claims to a proceeding. Ashland Licensing & Intellectual Property LLC v. Sunpoint International Group USA Corp., Cancellation No. 92057294, 2016 TTAB LEXIS 219 (T.T.A.B. June 7, 2016) [precedential].
Continue Reading TTAB Precedential Decision: Time Limit for Adding Claims Is Tolled by Filing of Cancellation Within Registration’s Fifth Anniversary