Category Archives: Trademarks
Are “Disparaging’ Trademarks Allowed?
The Lanham Act is a federal statute that governs trademarks, service marks and other forms of unfair competition. Section 2(a) of the act forbids the registration of trademarks that are deemed to be ‘disparaging’. While that would seem to answer the question, recently that provision has come under fire for constitutional reasons. Late last… Read More »
Hashtags Can Qualify for Trademark Protection
The Wall Street Journal recently posted a story about how companies are increasingly seeking trademark protection for hashtags. Hashtags are used on the internet, particularly social media, as a method of communication and information sorting. On some sites, such as Twitter, a hashtag is clickable and will sort all messages pertaining to a certain… Read More »
Fashion Designs: How To Protect Your Intellectual Property
Fashion is a multibillion dollar industry in Florida. By some economic estimates, 10 percent of the industry is made up of knock-off products. Many of these knock off fashion products are illegal. Fashion designers work hard creating unique ideas to bring new looks into the industry. It is only right that people are able… Read More »
Is Someone Infringing on Your Trademark?
When you started your business, you likely put time and energy into carefully designing your logo and brand. You then went through the process to trademark your brand set out by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) so that no one else could use it or try to copy it. One day,… Read More »
Federal Circuit May Allow Offensive Trademarks
A usually obscure trademark law doctrine has been in the news more and more over the past few months. 15 U.S.C. 1052(a) forbids the federal registration of a trademark, if that mark would disparage or offend certain groups of people. It was this section of the Lanham Act that recently resulted in the cancellation… Read More »
Copyright in the Social Media World
People often think of copyright as a tool reserved for artists and writers, as something that only protects books or music or movies. However, the reality is that copyright protection applies to much more than that. According to the statute, copyright law protects “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”… Read More »
When You Need Another Person’s Trademark: Fair Use in Trademark Law
Modern companies understand the importance of protecting their brand and reputation, and as such are often quick to dispatch a cease and desist letter as soon as they spot even a hint of potential trademark infringement. Consequently, many people are often hesitant to use someone else’s trademark, preferring to avoid the hassle of dealing… Read More »
Seeing Red: What the Fashion World Has Shown Us about Trademarks and Color
One of the most interesting things about trademark law is its flexibility. The law has adapted to provide trademark protection to a wide variety of objects from the mundane, like words or logos, to the unusual, like live animals. One commonly litigated non-traditional trademark is color. While the ability to trademark a combination of… Read More »
Is Trade Secret Protection Right for Your Business?
Modern businesses have begun to realize that some of their most important assets are completely intangible, things like business reputation or innovative ways of doing things. This has led more and more companies to begin seeking intellectual property protection for their ideas in order to gain an edge over their competitors. When people begin… Read More »
What Happens When a Trademark Goes too Far
Trademark law is usually concerned with protecting consumers from fraud. The idea behind it is that each company should get its own logo and name so that consumers know who they are buying from. Yet, sometimes trademark law goes beyond this, and attempts to address other concerns. One area of trademark law where this… Read More »
Don’t Scuff the Copyright: Federal Court Extends Intellectual Property Protection to Flooring
When trying to come up with things that copyright law protects, most people think about works like art, music, or movies. However, it turns out that copyright law protects much more than that. A recent ruling by the 11th Circuit, the federal appeals court covering Florida, highlights the surprisingly broad reach of copyright law…. Read More »
Copyright Law as a Solution to Revenge Porn
Updating the law tends to be a slow, laborious process that often takes years. This can be a problem when the law attempts to govern advances in technology, which can happen at a much faster pace. Such a problem has arisen in the area of revenge porn. Revenge porn is a recent phenomenon that… Read More »
Supreme Court Clarifies the Power of the Patent and Trademark Office
Although trademark law affects businesses every day, it has the reputation for being something of a niche area of law that many lawyers do not involve themselves with. Consequently, trademark issues rarely end up going before the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it happened twice this term. One of the cases, B&B Hardware v. Hargis… Read More »
Why Small Business Owners Should Care about Trademark Genericide
The law protects trademarks because they function as “source identifiers.” When a person sees a company logo on a product, they know which company is responsible for it. This allows consumers to easily find companies whose products they like, while avoiding those who sell inferior goods. Understanding this purpose of trademark law allows for… Read More »
Contesting an “Incontestable” Mark
One of the benefits of registering a trademark with the federal government is that after a certain period of time a mark becomes “incontestable.” That sounds like a powerful benefit. No one wants to be sued by someone with a mark that the government has labeled as beyond contestation. Yet, the name is actually… Read More »
The Basics of Music Copyright
Music copyright is one of the most common ways for people to interact with the intellectual property system. It affects many different services that people use all the time, such as Pandora, YouTube, and Netflix. It even appears in the news, such as the recent multimillion dollar judgment against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams… Read More »
The Supreme Court Deals with Tacky Trademarks
The U.S. Supreme Court is usually content to leave trademark law more or less untouched, relying on the lower courts to adjust the doctrine since it is something of a niche area of law. Yet, the Court has actually heard two trademarks cases this term. One, B&B Hardware v. Hargis Industries has yet to… Read More »
Intellectual Property Protection for Restaurants
Restaurant owners often wonder about whether they can use the intellectual property (IP) system to stop competitors from stealing their recipes. The answer, as with so many things in law, is that it is complicated. American IP is divided into four categories: patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. These each protect their own types… Read More »
Likelihood of Confusion in Trademark Law
Trademark law is a complicated field with a variety doctrines and nuances, but the core goal of the law is to prevent consumers from being confused about what company is offering a product or service. That means that in order for a plaintiff to prevail on a trademark infringement claim, they need to show… Read More »
Potential Changes to Attorney’s Fees in Trademark Lawsuits
Each branch of intellectual property has its own statutes and rules, but every so often, decisions in one sphere can bleed over into another. Such a situation might be happening now with regard to a patent law decision that is making ripples in trademark cases. Last year, the United States Supreme Court decided the… Read More »
