The United States Government is the largest single purchaser of goods and services in the world, spending over $550 Billion dollars a year. It has long been the policy of the United States to purchase buy American. Indeed, the Buy American Act, which promotes domestic purchasing of goods and services, was signed into law
The pandemic relief and economic stimulus legislation that hurriedly passed Congress at the tail end of 2020, named the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (“the Act”), resulted in major changes to American trademark and copyright law. Specifically, the Act included three intellectual property bills: the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020, the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims
On December 27, 2020, Congress signed the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (the “Act”), which had rare bipartisan support, into law.
The Act makes substantive changes to the Lanham (Trademark) Act that will better protect the relevant consuming public from confusion regarding the source of goods and services, and implement procedures that the
Two of our colleagues, Patricia Flanagan and and Alex Braunstein, recently wrote an alert on trademark and copyright changes that have been included in the most recent stimulus package. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which was signed into law on December 28th, makes significant changes to American intellectual property laws via
On December 1, 2020, the TTAB continued its recent trend of decisions refusing to register marks on the ground of failure-to-function. In another precedential decision, the TTAB refused Applicant Lee Greenwood’s (“Greenwood”) application to register the phrase GOD BLESS THE USA for use in connection with “accent pillows; decorative centerpieces of wood” and
Today I attended the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) virtual webinar on trademark trends and current developments in the United States and in Israel. Among the speakers were Andrei Iancu, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, and David Gooder, the Commissioner for Trademarks at the USPTO.
Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued a guidance document describing how they plan on following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com. You can read our previous blog post about this decision here. This document serves as a roadmap for how the PTO
To apply for a federally-registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), an applicant is required under 15 U.S.C. § 1051 to, among other things, submit specimens of the mark and verify that it is being used in commerce (or in the event of a future intent to use, verification as such
For the first time in nearly three years, the USPTO will be adjusting its fees for Trademark Registrations and for filing fees related to proceedings involving the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Some fee increases are minimal (e.g., only about 10% increase to file an ex parte appeal). However, other fee increases are substantial,
In a recent precedential decision, the United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) affirmed an examining attorney’s failure-to-function refusal as respecting the standard character mark TEXAS LOVE, rejecting the applicant’s argument that the refusal violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by treating Texas citizens differently than citizens of Florida,