Late last month, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) issued a Notice seeking comments as to whether Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) can be considered an inventor on a patent. Its questions “are designed to cover a variety of topics from patent examination policy to whether new forms of intellectual property protected are needed.”
This
Earlier this month, the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s (USPTO) finalized and announced a rule requiring foreign trademark applicants to be represented by a United States licensed attorney when applying for a US trademark registration . The rule covers individuals with a permanent legal residence outside the US or its territories and entities with
It’s old news by now, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that the immoral and scandalous trademark ban set forth in Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it disfavors certain ideas and thus discriminates based on viewpoint. Practically, this means that the United States Patent and
Since 1995, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have maintained intellectual property licensing guidelines, most recently updated in 2017. Those guidelines, titled “Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property,” discuss how the FTC and DOJ evaluate licensing for patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and know-how and how they
Earlier this month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) issued Examination Guide 1-19, intended to “clarify the procedure for examining marks for cannabis and cannabis-derived goods and for services involving cannabis and cannabis production following the 2018 Farm Bill.”
In the guide, the USPTO reminds us that use of a trademark
Earlier this month, the Federal Circuit ruled that trademark rulings from the International Trade Commission (“ITC”) do not have preclusive effect. This means that ITC actions do not bar district court cases, that ITC trademark rulings are not binding on district courts, and that parties are not estopped from raising arguments they’ve raised in front
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in the Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC N/K/A Old Cold LLC case previously blogged about here and here. The issue in that case was whether, when a trademark owner/licensor files for bankruptcy, the licensee of the trademark can legally continue use of the mark
Earlier this month, at the request of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals officially set a trademark registration requirement by making an earlier ruling precedential. That previously-unpublished ruling, which affirmed an earlier Trademark Trial & Appeal Board ruling, clarified the specific types of sales transaction information that are
With the 2019 NCAA Men’s and Women’s College Basketball Tournaments in full swing, most people probably aren’t thinking “hmm, I wonder if the NCAA owns any trademarks related to the Tournament?” But, maybe they should be.
To date, the NCAA owns over twenty-four trademarks related to its annual Basketball Tournaments. Unsurprisingly, those trademarks include such
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) approved Campbell Soup Company’s (“Campbell’s”) application to trademark the word “chunky.” Campbell’s filed an application with the USPTO back in May 2018. In its application, Campbell’s cited to “massive unsolicited media coverage of chunky,” according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. The word “chunky” has been parodied