Category Archives: Trademarks
Startups and Trademarks
You and your friends have discussed, with increasing enthusiasm, your idea for a new business. Maybe you want to produce an app, or maybe a restaurant pairing different cuisines. You know what you are going to do, and how you are going to do it, but you also know that you will be cash-strapped, with […]
A Tilted Playing Field: Copyright Infringement and Attorneys’ Fees
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. […]
Obtaining ® For Your Trademark – Classification is Crucial – New Trademark Guidelines Regarding Service Mark Classification
By: Sharon Adams Every trademark application must identify the exact mark, and the goods or services that are associated with the mark. The Trademark Examination Guide (released in August 2014) makes clear that improper classification of the goods or services may result in rejection of the trademark application. The Guidelines […]
Now for The [Good] News…
by: Andrew K Jacobson The news has been dreary for some time now, and September has not been friendly in the recent past. Under all that gloom, it is easy to forget that there is a lot of good news out there: Lower Crime. Accounting for population growth, violent crime is down 48 percent over the […]
Don’t Put It On My TTAB
by: Andrew K Jacobson If an executive agency, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) decides an issue, are courts bound to follow that decision? The circuit courts of appeal have multiple conclusions, but the Supreme Court seems poised to resolve this in the next year, because of its decision to hear a case called […]
“Who Gave You Permission to Make That?” The Intellectual Property Implications of 3D Printing.
Although 3D printing has been around since the early 1980s, recent improvements and price decreases of 3D printing technology has made it available to an increasing number of businesses and consumers. Advances in the technology have allowed designers to 3D print designs virtually impossible to make just a few years ago, from an assortment of materials ranging from plastic to living cells. The price barrier to 3D printing has finally lowered to a point where regular consumers have begun entering the marketplace and companies such as Stratasys and 3D Systems have begun making relatively inexpensive lines of 3D “desktop” printers targeted at consumers. 3D printing, much like the PC in the early 1980s, is poised to make the leap from the domain of big businesses, researchers, and hobbyists to everyday consumers and small businesses.
Star-Struck, or Struck Dumb?
by Andrew Jacobson Comedian Nathan Fielder has been revealed as the brains behind the “Dumb Starbucks” shop that popped up without fanfare (or a health permit) on a Friday afternoon. It disappeared the next Monday. While the joke seemed to be on the people who waited in line for three hours for bad coffee and Vons-bought […]
Obama’s One Sentence on Patent Reform –
By Sharon Adams After Passing the Most Sweeping Patent Law Reform in Decades, President Obama’s State Of the Union speech briefly mentioned patent law. “And let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly and needless litigation.” This single sentence appeared to be dropped into the middle […]
When Being The Best Is Not Enough . . .
Dunkin’ Donuts has found the hard way that being the self-styled best isn’t good enough. The United States Patent & Trademark Office has refused to register its slogan “Best Coffee in America,” as being merely descriptive and not having a secondary meaning to consumers. Dunkin’s prime claim to trademark registration is that the slogan became distinctive over the […]
Limits on Civil Torture
It is easy to feel smug when we look back on our ancestors 1000 years ago. They had donkeys — we have 400 horsepower, 4 wheel drive vehicles. They had the Black Death — we have vaccines for all types of illness, even cancer. For a justice system, they had trial by ordeal — we […]
