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Inflation Reduction Act
Scandalous and Immoral Trademarks Awarded First Amendment Protection
On December 15, the Federal Circuit held that the prohibition on the registration of scandalous and immoral trademarks is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment. In re Brunetti , No. 2015-1109, 2017 WL 6391161 (Fed. Cir. 2017). This decision...
Supreme Court to Slants: “Rock On!” Trademark Ban on Offensive Trademarks Held Unconstitutional
On June 19, 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously held that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §1052(a)), the provision of federal trademark law barring registration of disparaging trademarks, violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause when applied to...
Supreme Court Clarifies Copyright Protection for Artistic Features in Clothing
On March 22, 2017, the Supreme Court held that a two- or three-dimensional work of art on a useful article, such as clothing, is protectable under copyright law if: (1) the work of art can be perceived as separate from...
Keep Quiet and Carry On under the EU Trade Secrets Directive
Much as the recent U.S. Defend Trade Secrets Act establishes uniform federal trade secrets protections across the states, the EU Trade Secrets Directive (the “Directive”) harmonizes similar protections across its Member States to encourage cross-border investments. The Directive addresses hot...
It's No Secret: Employment & Federal Considerations in New Trade Secrets Law
On May 11, President Obama signed into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA). The result of rare bipartisan support, the DTSA was passed unanimously by the House last month. It creates the first federal civil cause of...
The Trade Secrets Bill Proceeds to the President's Desk
On April 27, the House of Representatives by a 410-2 vote passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which creates a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation, providing trade secrets with a degree of protection akin to other...
When the Best Defense is a Federal Cause of Action: Trade Secret Owners May Soon Have a Federal Cause of Action for Trade Secret Misappropriation
Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed bill S. 1890, the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA). If enacted, the DTSA will create a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation, providing protection similar to that afforded...
Supreme Court Rules that Trademark Tacking is a Question for Juries
Today, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Hana Financial v. Hana Bank, 574 U.S. ___ (2015), that trademark tacking is a question for juries. Trademark tacking, or the ability to "tack" a new mark to an older mark in order...
.bank and Other Domain Names to Open for Financial Institutions... And Others
The governing body that administers the domain name space, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is in the process of vastly expanding the number of top level domain names (like .com and .net) from less than thirty...
Supreme Court Grants Cert on Trademark "Tacking"
Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States granted a writ of certiorari in Hana Financial, Inc. v Hana Bank . The issue presented is whether trademark "tacking" is an issue of fact for a jury or an issue...
Copyright Co-Authorship: Be Prepared to Weather the Storms
To listen to the podcast, please click here . The recent Third Circuit decision in Brownstein v. Lindsay , --- F.3d ----, 2014 WL 306240 (3 rd Cir. Jan. 29, 2014) clarified important issues related to the statute of limitations...
Re-Calculating Patent Term Adjustments Once Again
The Federal Circuit has adjusted the way we calculate Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) once again with its holdings in Novartis and Exelixis . 1 The Federal Circuit held that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been incorrectly...
Copyright Owners: Keep Your Eye on the Road
Copyright owners need to stay alert! If you have an infringement, ownership interest, or other claim to assert in a copyrighted work and fail to do so within the three year statute of limitations you risk being barred from asserting...
No Claims, No Drawings, No Problems
As part of efforts to unify international procedural rules for patent applicants, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently released new rules that have important procedural consequences generally deemed to be quite favorable for patent applicants and owners...
Fantastic .Voyage: The Launch of First 9 New gTLDs
The first nine new generic top-level domain name spaces (gTLDs) in English 1 are expected to go live on or around October 29, 2013. These first nine domain spaces to join existing gTLDs like .com and .net are: .camera, .clothing...