When the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) last week revoked the EU trade mark registration for the mark ‘BIG MAC’, following a challenge brought by an Irish fast-food chain, SUPERMAC’S, it was hailed by the media as a triumph for a small business in its continue reading...
In the magical land of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a new chapter has been added to the trademark fairytale: consumers may have a real interest in preventing the exclusive appropriation of merely descriptive or generic terms by trademark owners. The Trademark Trial and continue reading...
Andy Warhol once famously commented that “In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” For trademarks, fifteen minutes of fame is not sufficient to assert a trademark dilution claim. The timing of when a mark first became famous and how long that continue reading...
The NFL playoffs are underway and teams and their fans are riding high: eight teams still have a chance of making the Super Bowl. Now could be the perfect time to protect the team slogan or motto that fans will love for years to come. continue reading...
On Friday, while some of us may have been muttering a few bad words as we slogged through our post-holiday inboxes, the Supreme Court was toying with a naughty word of its own: FUCT. That’s right. Late last week the Court agreed to hear a continue reading...
If you were shopping for snack crackers and saw Cheez-It packages that looked like the ones shown here, how much whole grain content would you think the crackers contain – a little, a lot, all of it? The Second Circuit continue reading...
A lesser-known feature of selecting a TRUMP-branded property as a wedding venue is that the President himself may decide to crash your wedding. It also may end up leading to a substantial copyright law development, specifically regarding the fair use doctrine and photographs posted to continue reading...
As we previously reported on our blog, the doors to the public domain will open in the United States for the first time since 1998. On January 1, 2019, any works published in the United States in 1923 or prior are freed from the shackles continue reading...
In a decision issued on December 12, 2018, the Second Circuit refused to recognize application of the first sale doctrine to a service that had been established as a marketplace for resale of digital music files. Under the first sale doctrine (set forth in Section continue reading...
American Airlines recently scored a major win by convincing the Copyright Office to reverse its refusal of an application to register the “American Airlines Flight Symbol.” American Airlines reached its final destination after overcoming myriad delays. The Copyright Office rejected American Airlines’ copyright application three continue reading...
