No Damages, Big Problem: Infringement Claims Lacking Cognizable Injury What’s in this article… No Damages, No Case? Proving Loss Of Profits As Loss Of Good Will Can Also Qualify As Damages No Damages, No Case? The Importance of Cognizable Damages in Trademark Infringement Claims In a highly competitive marketplace, established companies sometimes use a variety...Read More

Trademark and Copyright Issues to Consider With Sales of Athletic Goods and Apparel When can a generic design rise to an infringement of intellectual property rights? A common and growing occurrence comes when one takes an attribute of a famous athlete (like a number), puts it with that athlete’s team color scheme, and the next...Read More

Amazon Faces Trademark Infringement Claim Amazon Faces Trademark Infringement Claim – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that internet-based retail giant Amazon.com could be misleading consumers by displaying a watchmaker’s competing products when users search for its watches (read the full opinion here). Multi Time Machine Inc. (“MTM”), a luxury, military style...Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the Polo Association may sell sunglasses with a logo that is similar to the Ralph Lauren trademark.lRead More

Trademarking Food – Pizzeria Makes Case Pizzeria Makes its Case for Trademarking Food – A federal court in Texas ruled that flavors of a pizza chain’s food and its plating techniques lacked trademark and trade dress protection. The pizza chain, New York Pizzeria, Inc. (NYPI) alleged that Ryandir Syal, a restaurateur, along with other defendants,...Read More

Contributory Cybersquatting Contributory Cybersquatting – Does the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) provide a basis of liability for a domain name registration service if one of its registrants is guilty of cybersquatting?  The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s opinion that the ACPA does not provide for so-called...Read More

Trade Dress – Whiskey Bottle Showdown David Versus Goliath in Whiskey Bottle Showdown Trade Dress Showdown – One of the iconic, uniquely American products out there is Tennessee Whiskey.  With rugged, outlaw roots stemming from the days of moonshining and prohibition but now accepted the world over as a highly sought after beverage, even the...Read More

Swarovski Aktiengesellschaft v. Building No. 19 – Nominative Fair Use Nominative Fair Use – This case highlighted the fact that trademark law is constantly evolving – the major issue was so-called “nominative” use of a trademark, i.e., use of a trademark to refer to the trademark holder’s own goods in an advertisement by a seller...Read More

Trade Dress – Does it Have to Have Secondary Meaning? In a previous post we’ve touched on the idea of trade dress – the packaging of a product, and its “look and feel.”  The configuration of the product itself, such as the shape of a bottle, may also be considered trade dress.  Trade dress is protectable...Read More

Titles of Artistic Works – Implications of Dastar Artistic Works – The United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently decided the case of Eastland Music Group v. Lionsgate Entertainment.  This action for trademark infringement, and the court’s subsequent analysis helped settle an issue long weighed by courts and commentators – to what extent...Read More