Tequila and cigars go together like love and marriage; or maybe not. %CUT% El Galan Inc. tried to register the word “Ternura” for a brand of cigars. The USPTO refused registration because Don Francisco Spirits LLC had already registered the same word for tequila. The USPTO said that the two products are “related”, meaning that they are complementary and linked in the minds of consumers. El Galan appealed to the TTAB. The TTAB affirmed the refusal. The TTAB reached back into history and cited a 1955 ruling by the Fifth Circuit in favor of the famous Scotch whiskey brand, Johnnie Walker, against a company that wanted to use the name for cigars. Because, after all, everyone connects whiskey and cigars. So according to the USPTO and the TTAB, the same is true for tequila and cigars. The TTAB pulled back a little by saying that the opinion should not be interpreted to mean that cigars and alcoholic beverages will always be considered related.

Software can have lots of layers like an onion which can be trouble for an infringement lawsuit. %CUT% In CSS, Inc. v. Herrington, CSS complained that the defendants infringed on three of its copyrighted software programs. The programs were made up of a lot of different components, including third party software and abstract ideas. The court’s opinion peeled the layers of CSS’s software onions to get to the decision. First, the court peeled off the function that each program performed because they were "ideas" of the programs and not their expression. Then the court peeled away the client/server architecture used by each of the programs because that was non-copyrightable industry-standard. Next came the third party components because they didn’t belong to either party. Next came the arrangement of the third party components didn’t have enough creativity for copyright protection. Then the court peeled away the layer that was the name/address algorithm because it was unoriginal and not copyrightable. Once the court got to the small onion core of protectable software that was left, the court held that CSS didn’t prove substantially similarity between CSS’s onion core and the defendants’ onion core. CSS may have had something that was protectable, but after peeling away the uncopyrightable components of its software it couldn’t prove infringement.

With March Madness upon us, we must remember its bumpy trademark road. %CUT% March Madness is the uber-famous trademark of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s championship basketball tournament. But the NCAA was not the first to use the trademark. The Illinois High School Association was. The IHSA unsuccessfully tried to stop the NCAA from using it. The court held that both had the right to use the name. Eventually, the NCAA acquired the IHSA’s rights. Once the NCAA acquired the rights, it aggressively protected the trademark. The NCAA has been able to squelch the unlicensed use of the trademark and anything that comes perilously close such as “April Madness” (for entertainment service), “Markdown Madness” (for auto sales services), “Skate Madness” (for skateboarding competitions) and “Freestyle Madness” (for various entertainment services).