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
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, 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 That previously-unpublished ruling, which affirmed an earlier Trademark Trial & Appeal Board ruling, clarified the specific types of sales transaction information that are
Just when we thought the unconstitutionality of the ban on disparaging and scandalous trademarks had been resolved, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) is shaking things up. As a reminder, and as previously covered on this blog here and here, there were two important rulings in 2017 related to the trademark ban
Yesterday the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) affirmed the refusal by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to allow a Florida company to register trademarks containing the word “Keto.” In its ruling, the TTAB explained that the term “keto” is descriptive for ketogenic dietary products, even when combined with the other words
In what may be the final installment of a series of blog posts related to the Lanham Act’s disparaging trademark ban and its effect on the Washington Redskins’ trademarks, the Fourth Circuit finally issued a decision in the Redskins’ case. When the United States Supreme Court ruled last June in a case involving the Slants
A trademark may give a business the right to stop others from using these marks to sell similar goods or services or using marks that may be confusingly similar. However, federal trademark protection is out of reach for hundreds of businesses across the country.
The recent announcement that the DOJ was rescinding the Cole Memo
Continuing my ongoing coverage of the Lanham Act’s disparaging trademark ban, the Federal Circuit ruled today that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2017 ruling striking down the ban on disparaging trademarks also applies to the ban on “immoral” and “scandalous” trademarks set forth in section 2(a) of the Lanham Act. Applying First Amendment free