JONES DAY TALKS®: Women in IP: 2020 in Review and a Look Toward 2021
Join Sterne Kessler’s Global Trademark & Brand Protection team for our mid-year review webinar, when we will take a closer look at the latest developments in trademark law. From recent court decisions to industry-trends, our...more
Why can't I use my hometown as my brand? A trademark is part of your branding, a way to identify the source of your product or service. In many ways, the stronger the brand, the stronger the trademark. However, there are...more
Thank you for reading the July 2023 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we continue our three-part series that closely examines ways to lose trademark rights with a discussion of genericide. We...more
In a precedential opinion addressing the most fundamental requirement for trademark protection, the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (Board) affirmed the US Patent & Trademark Office’s (PTO) refusal to register a “#” based mark...more
For the second time, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit examined the standard for demonstrating fraud in a party’s claim of a trademark’s acquired distinctiveness for purposes of registration under Section 2(f)...more
[co-author: Joseph Diorio, Law Clerk] The January 2021 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter discusses: a recent non-precedential TTAB decision on background designs; the Trademark Modernization Act;...more
Jones Day's Meredith Wilkes and Anna Raimer discuss 2020's most significant developments in trademark law and preview what's to come in 2021, including possible progress in Washington on the highly anticipated Trademark...more
On June 30, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated decision regarding the trademark application of Booking.com. In United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com, the Court held that a mark...more
How appropriate that the first-ever Supreme Court case to consider whether trademarks used on the internet can be registered should also be the first in which oral argument was conducted remotely. The issue in this historic...more
As is often the case, technology develops faster than the law. In that connection, courts are often called upon to apply legislation from yesteryear to technology which, at the time the legislation was passed, would have been...more
On June 30, 2020, the US Supreme Court held that a “generic.com” mark (a generic term in combination with “.com”) could be eligible for federal trademark registration, refusing to adopt the US Patent and Trademark Office’s...more
The United States Supreme Court issued the long-awaited Booking.com decision on Tuesday. Justice Ginsburg delivered the 8-1 opinion of the Court, holding that a combination of a generic term and a top-level domain name, like...more
The Lanham Act (“Act”) makes it clear that generic terms cannot be registered as trademarks. But can an online business create a protectable trademark by adding a generic top-level domain (e.g., “.com”) to an otherwise...more
On Monday, May 4, 2020, for the first time in its 231-year history, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments through a telephone conference call, allowing the attorneys to present arguments while complying with shelter-in-place...more
On Monday, we listened in real time to the livestreamed Supreme Court oral arguments in the trademark registration case United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V. Because of COVID-19, the arguments were...more
On May 4, 2020, the United States Supreme Court heard its first ever telephonic oral argument in its history. The case, styled United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com, B.V., addressed the issue of whether the...more
In a non-precedential opinion issued this month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the refusal to register Jos. A. Magnus & Co., LLC’s mark MAGNUS for “whiskey, gin, and...more
The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari on a petition filed by the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) seeking to overturn a district court decision in favor of Booking.com. The PTO argues that the mark is...more
Breaking News! What happened? The United States Supreme Court recently announced that it has granted certiorari in United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V., a case about whether the addition of...more
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the USPTO’s writ of certiorari to review traveling website company Booking.com’s trademark application for “booking.com”. The TMCA previously covered developments in this case here....more
This year the Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the Circuit Courts penned a number of opinions impacting trademark law. Here are some key takeaways from the past year...more
Relatives of the late conservative political activist, Phyllis Schlafly, lost their appeal to prevent the Saint Louis Brewery, LLC (“the Brewery”) from trademarking the Schlafly name in connection with various beer products...more
2017 was a year filled with significant developments in case law for trademarks. The below rulings highlight some successes and obstacles faced by companies in the protection of their trademarks and their brand as a whole. ...more
Although most people will recognize the ubiquitous PIZZA! PIZZA! slogan mark owned by the pizza chain Little Caesar’s, the company’s collection of repeated term marks does not rise to the level of a “family of marks”...more