The United States Supreme Court issued a ruling on May 9, 2024, in a copyright case that would allow a music producer to seek damages for alleged infringements occurring more than ten years ago when it held that the Copyright...more
5/16/2024
/ Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Damages ,
Discovery Rule ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Music Industry ,
SCOTUS ,
Statute of Limitations ,
The Copyright Act ,
Warner Chappell Music v Nealy
On June 8, 2023, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of liquor distiller Jack Daniel's in its dispute over a dog toy designed to emulate the recognized whiskey bottle. Through this ruling, the Court...more
By an 8-1 vote, in United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V., 591 U.S. ____ (2020), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the addition of a generic top-level domain such as ".com" to an otherwise generic term...more
7/1/2020
/ Acquired Distinctiveness ,
Appeals ,
Booking.com ,
Domain Name Registration ,
Domain Names ,
Lanham Act ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
United States Patent and Trademark Office v Booking.com BV ,
USPTO
On April 23, 2020, the United States Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020), resolved a circuit court split by confirming that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement...more
5/11/2020
/ § 1125(a) ,
§ 1125(c) ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Compensatory Awards ,
Dilution ,
Lanham Act ,
Lost Profits ,
Remand ,
Remedies ,
Romag Fasteners v Fossil ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Vacated ,
Willful Infringement
The Immoral and Scandalous Bar to Trademark Registration is Unconstitutional -
On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court's decision in Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. __ (2019), struck down the Lanham Act's ban on registering...more
6/26/2019
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Lanham Act ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reversal ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination
On May 20, 2019, the Supreme Court resolved a significant issue of trademark and bankruptcy law that was decades in the making....more
5/31/2019
/ Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Contract ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Exclusions ,
Executory Contracts ,
IP License ,
Mission Product Holdings Inc v Tempnology LLC ,
Popular ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 365 ,
Split of Authority ,
Trademark Licenses ,
Trademarks ,
Trustees
The U.S. Supreme Court held today that the "disparagement clause" of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional, a decision that likely settles the question of whether the Redskins football team's trademarks are registrable amidst...more
6/21/2017
/ Disparagement ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Lanham Act ,
Matal v Tam ,
Music Industry ,
SCOTUS ,
The Slants ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
This month, the U.S. Supreme Court in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. revived copyright infringement claims based on the motion picture Raging Bull, and in the process may have killed the "discovery rule" for when a...more