Nearly every business needs a trademark and adding trademark law to your transactional law practice might be the right move for you. Developing a solo practice in any area of law is not for the faint at heart, but after years of working as a trademark attorney, over the next two weeks, I’m going to share with you my best …
The Ohio State University (OSU) has been granted what many in our profession believe to be a silly, unenforceable trademark, having received a federal trademark registration for the word “THE” for various clothing items in the field of sports and college athletics. U.S. Registration Number 6763118 was issued to OSU on June 21, 2022. Does this mean that OSU can …
USPTO Sanctions Over 30 Low-Cost DIY Trademark Filing Websites On January 25, 2022, the USPTO issued sanctions against Abtach Ltd., 360 Digital Marketing LLC, and Retrocube LLC all believed to be operating out of Pakistan (“Respondents”). These entities were operating under thirty different trade names to file trademark applications for consumers, including Trademark Terminal, Trademark Regal, and US Trademark Solutions, …
On Friday, December 10, 2021, the USPTO issued a final order for sanctions requiring Senzhen Huanyee Intellectual Property Co., Ltd. and its executive director Ms. Yusha Zhang (collectively “Respondents”) for filing 15,000 trademark applications in contravention of the U.S. Trademark Rules of Practice (“Rules”). The sanctions imposed include: (1) permanently precluding Respondents and their employees from submitting trademark-related documents at …
On September 30, 2021, in a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) clarified that “reckless disregard satisfies the requisite intent for fraud on the USPTO in trademark matters.” Chutter, Inc. v. Great Concepts, LLC, 2021 USPQ2d 1001 (TTAB 2021). This question was left open by the Federal Circuit in the seminal case of In re Bose. Since Bose, the number of …
The USPTO has been experiencing a surge in new trademark application filings since the height of the pandemic and this has caused delays in examining applications and issuing trademark registrations. There are many possible reasons for the surge in new trademark applications filings including a record number of small businesses being formed, changes to Amazon’s brand registry program, established businesses …
If you were The Coca-Cola Company (“TCCC”), how would you stop a trademark application for CONCEAL-CARRY REGISTERED HANDGUN (“CONCEAL-CARRY”) for clothing? The marks certainly don’t sound very similar. What if I told you the CONCEAL-CARRY application was filed in this stylization – would that change your mind? Of course, it would! But why? For starters, COCA-COLA owns a registered trademark …
Any client interested in protecting its intellectual property should apply for a trademark as quickly as possible to ensure the maximum amount of legal protection. The trademark does not need to already be in use in interstate commerce or even have an online presence in order to file a trademark application. In fact, under the United States Patent and Trademark …
The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“TMA”) was passed by the U.S. Congress on December 27, 2020 as part of the huge COVID relief package that sent most Americans an additional $600 stimulus check. Although the changes will not be implemented at the USPTO until December 27, 2021, there are several sweeping changes that will be forthcoming. The Trademark Modernization Act …
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) first announced that trademark filing fees would be increasing in August 2019 but delayed rolling out the increase due to the pandemic. In August 2020, the new Commissioner of Trademarks announced that the increase would become effective January 2, 2021 without announcing the specific fee structure. The USPTO has not raised fees …
