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Trademark

Trademark Audits: What Registrants Should Expect


In 2017, the USPTO initiated an aggressive auditing program of U.S. trademark registrations at the time of maintenance filings. The goal of the program is to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the U.S. register by removing or narrowing registrations that include claims beyond the scope of the registrant’s actual use of its mark in U.S. commerce. The Office is on pace to audit 5000 registrations in 2020 so registrants who have not been tagged as yet should be prepared for an audit in the future.

By way of background, the U.S. system of protection for trademarks, unlike many non-U.S. systems, requires the trademark owner to actually use its mark in U.S. commerce with all the goods or services specified in the registration. Accordingly, to maintain an issued registration the registrant must declare, under oath, that all of the specified goods or services claimed in registration are being provided under the mark to U.S. customers at the time of filing registrant’s Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use (due between the 5th and 6th and years after registration) and Renewal (due every 10 years after registration) filings are due. This “actual use” requirement applies regardless of the original … Keep reading

Supreme Court Helps Trademark Owners: Proof of “Willfulness” Is Not Required To Recover Infringer’s Profits


In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that trademark infringers can be required to hand over their profits to a brand owner even if their conduct was not “willful.” The case was Romag Fasteners v. Fossil Group, Inc., 590 U.S. (2020). It is an important case for trademark owners because it lowers the plaintiff’s burden to recover a defendant’s ill-gotten profits.  In fact, after Romag, the defendant’s deliberate and intentional state of mind is no longer the critical factor that courts must consider in order to award profits in a trademark infringement case. Romag can be an important weapon for trademark owners against, for example, infringers that use their mark on goods or services that do not directly compete with the trademark owner, where the trademark owner did not necessarily lose a sale and may have no actual damages in that regard. Profit disgorgement by the infringer allows for monetary compensation even if the trademark owner has not been directly damaged in that way.

Fossil is a large and well-known distributor of fashion accessories.  Romag sells magnetic snap fasteners for leather goods. For years, Romag and Fossil had an agreement whereby Fossil used Romag fasteners in … Keep reading

Domain Name Offer: Helpful Service, or Marketing Scam?


In 2013, I blogged about a common deceptive technique used by some publishers around the world that send apparently official invoices to trademark applicants in the hopes that people will reflexively pay outrageous sums for a listing of their brand in a catalog few will read. I wanted to follow up on that post and summarize another common scam that befalls trademark owners and applicants.  I get an inquiry from a client at least 2-3 times per month: “Is This Domain Name Email Legitimate?”The ruse works like this: Trademark owner applies for a trademark in the U.S. or with another office in another country.  Information about the mark and the owner is publicly available to scammers through simple searches. The scammer sends an email to the trademark owner purporting to warn the mark owner of the ill behavior of a potential domain name squatter. Below is an actual email received recently by a client.  I have changed the names in the email to avoid any embarrassment of the recipient, but I otherwise have left the text, including the grammatical errors of the original, intact.Dear CEO/Principal,We are the department of [Domain Name] Service in China. Here I … Keep reading
What's In a Name?


Question: What do Sean Combs, J.K. Rowling, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, and Mark Wahlberg have in common? Two things, actually. First, they are all listed on the Forbes 2017 Celebrity 100 List; second, they all have gone to the trouble of registering their personal names as trademarks with the U.S Trademark Office. Indeed, of the first 20 celebrities on this “A” list, 19 have sought registration of their names as trademarks.

Trademark Protections For Personal Names

Under Federal law, everyone is entitled to seek protection of his or her name as a brand. The Lanham Act expressly provides that:

No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it … consists of or comprises a name, portrait, or signature identifying a particular living individual except by his written consent.

As indicated by the language of the statute, in addition to names, likenesses (portraits) and signatures of individuals are entitled to trademark registration. Several well-known entertainers have taken advantage of this right, including Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Anthony Hopkins … Keep reading

That Sound Reminds Me of...


Part of the fun of trademark practice is its unique overlap with literature, art, science, culture, and psychology. Words and symbols are used as trademarks to identify sources of commercial goods; convey messages to consumers that go beyond their pure literal meaning; and, through a curious alchemy of psychology, repetition, aesthetic attraction, and cultural filtering, somehow evoke brand loyalty, leading consumers to open their wallets. Subtle, but powerful messaging animates buyer behavior.

However, if psychology and/or science were the sole driver of branding campaigns, a lot more marketers would stop trying to find the next catchy phrase or word—”Covfefe,” “Google,” “Yelp“—and instead focus on what subliminal force is most likely to create the strongest bond between the consumer and the manufacturer. Despite smell and sound being the more profound links to human feelings and motivations, marketers rarely do more than play at the edges of these forces—by using a jingle occasionally, for example.

Psychoacoustics and the Associations Created by Sound

We’ve all experienced the sensation of hearing a piece of music, or even a familiar sound, and having it transport us back in time to some experience from our youth. When it happens, … Keep reading

Does the Emperor Really Have No Clothes?


A Teachable Moment in the Way of the TRUMP Brand and Naked Licensing of Trademarks

 

The current POTUS has a lot of things on his plate right now, and the status of his trademark rights (or, perhaps, more appropriately, the trademark rights of the Trump Organization) around the globe shouldn’t be top of mind. That said, the Trump Organization’s pattern of not controlling the quality of services that are provided under the TRUMP brand provides a teachable moment in the world of trademarks and branding.

The news media have reported repeatedly about the Trump Organization’s penchant for distancing itself from TRUMP-branded projects that have failed, including those in Baja California, and Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as developments outside the U.S. in Panama and Azerbaijan, among others. While the details of these projects vary, all of them follow a similar narrative. The Trump Organization involves itself in the promotion of an upcoming TRUMP-branded real estate development, and then, despite hype and ample purchases by willing consumers and investors seeking to own a piece of TRUMP real estate, the project never properly gets off the ground, the developers flee with the deposits, and the purchasers … Keep reading

IP Challenges for Ganjapreneurs


Like any industry, cannabusinesses and ganjapreneurs need to be thoughtful about protecting their proprietary material, in order to mitigate their risk of being ripped off – or worse, being accused of infringing other people’s rights. This post provides a brief overview of trademark and copyright issues to consider when developing and protecting your business in this space.

Protecting Cannabusiness Branding

If your product is king, then your brand is certainly queen. Your brand name, or trademark, tells consumers that a product or service comes from you and not your competitors. Accordingly, identifying and protecting the name of your new business could be fundamental to your success.

Some Quick General Rules on Trademark Protection
Regardless of your industry, under U.S. law, trademark rights involve a business’s use of a name, term, phrase, or logo in connection with the sale of specific goods and services. Generally, the first business to use a name in the marketplace is entitled to claim ownership of it. It is, however, possible to obtain rights beforehand, if an application for registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is filed. If your business adopts a trademark that is too similar to a mark used by an … Keep reading


shutterstock_244812262 (2)Trademark owners are in the midst of another ‘think’ about the best way to protect and preserve their reputations online.  Specifically, beginning on March 30, 2015 the Sunrise Period opened for brand owners to fork over $2499 for domain names that end in .sucks. This $2499 payment is necessary annually to keep yourbrand.sucks from the clutches of an unhappy customer who might use it to make a career out of publishing any material they wish (fair, unfair or otherwise) about your company, or if you are celebrity – about your performance or personal  life.  To add insult to this expensive injury, after the end of the Sunrise Period, pretty much anyone (other than the brand owner) can pick up the same domains for $9.99 making the barrier to entry for complainants rather low.

As reported by The World Trademark Review and others, the CEO of .sucks registrar Vox Populi, John Berard, claims that intent of the apparently inapt pricing scheme is to encourage brand owners to engage with consumers.  By making the price high, there will be less warehousing of domains and some brand domains will find their way into the hands of people who will … Keep reading


You Can Trademark That?  They Can Own What? Who Knew?

There are many reasons we have IP laws – but primary among them is to encourage creative types like artists and inventors to profit from their efforts by way of royalties or exclusive rights.  To encourage those efforts, the intellectual property laws give authors and creators a relative monopoly over something they’ve created – a trademark, an invention, a script, a computer program, etc.  It’s like society is saying “you made it, so you can own it – at least for a while…”

But a natural tension immediately presents itself when we grant these exclusive rights.  Our culture wants to embrace, use and assimilate all that is cutting edge and new without having to ask for permission.  We take – no, we borrow Pharrell Williams’  “Happy” riffs and make them background music to our YouTube® videos of our cats and our dogs.  We expropriate “just a” screen capture from the Godzilla movie and create e-cards or embed them on our Facebook® pages.  Our post-90s, crowd sourced, media-centered sensibility has created this “if it’s out there it must be free” (or “it wants to be free”) ethos … Keep reading


Scam AlertThere are few things more annoying than the feeling that you have been duped into paying for something that you neither need nor want.   IP owners, and particularly trademark owners, are common targets for scammers seeking to obtain fees for bogus, unnecessary or questionable services offered at outrageous prices.  No doubt these scams work because people are busy – but the notices also are steeped in what looks like official language, may appear to come from official governmental auspices, and seem to suggest that the fees cover “renewal,” “registration” or “publication.”  These activities are all items that IP owners are accustomed to paying for, so when they see notices requesting payment (rather than merely soliciting interest in a service) they tend to pay the invoice rather than ask questions about the content or source of the purported services.

Here’s how it works.  A trademark owner files to protect its mark in the U.S. or abroad.  They might use a law firm for that service or file directly.  Regardless, information about the applicant and the mark is publicly available through the online database maintained by the U.S. Trademark Office (or other international offices).  The purported scammer service provider picks up

… Keep reading