Be careful what you text because you may end up a party to contract. %CUT% A court in Massachusetts held that the texts between two real estate sales agents resulted in a binding contract. In most states, contracts for the sale of real estate have to be in writing. This is called the Statute of Frauds. The writing has to be signed by both parties and contain sufficiently complete terms and an intention to be bound by those terms. The court held that the e-mails and texts between the agents filled all of the requirements of a binding written contract.

The NOBLE HOUSE trademark got lost in a corporate muddle. %CUT% Floorco Enterprises LLC claimed that it was using the NOBLE HOUSE trademark for furniture since 2010. The problem? Floorco wasn’t really using the mark. Its parent company, Furnco International Corp. was. And even then, Furnco was only using it sporadically. Noble House Home Furnishings filed a cancellation proceeding. The reason is simple . . . well, not quite. A parent company’s use of a mark can inure to the benefit of its subsidiary. But a subsidiary’s use does not inure to the benefit of the parent. Since, Floorco wasn’t using the mark, it was deemed abandoned. The TTAB canceled Floorco’ s trademark.