In Brief:  A trademark that is generally known to refer to the use of a controlled substance cannot be federally registered.

In Brief:  The US Supreme Court held that, with some exceptions, US Trademark Law does not reach infringement outside the US.

In Brief:  As January reaches the halfway point and New Years’ resolutions to work out weaken, a trademark case involving a fitness franchise seems appropriate.

In Brief:  There’s a limit to how many permutations of a word can avoid a likelihood of confusion.

In Brief: When manufacturing stops, cancellation of a trademark is not far behind.

In Brief:  The U.S. Supreme Court held that dog toy parodies are not protected by the First Amendment.

In Brief:  Monster Energy couldn’t stop a Mad Monster Party.

In Brief:  Tacking is a very limited way to extend the protection of a trademark.

In Brief:  A popular catch phrase can become someone’s trademark.

In Brief:   Parody is permitted but not always available for registration as a trademark.

In Brief:  “The” can be a trademark.

In Brief:  Adopting a portion of someone else’s trademark can lead to a likelihood of confusion.

In Brief: A generic top level domain name needs something more to be a trademark.

In Brief:  If you intend to get your trademarks back after a transfer, be sure that’s what your documents say.

In Brief: Trademarks that co-exist for a long time don’t always create a likelihood of confusion.

In Brief:  Use of a licensed trademark is limited by the scope of the license.

In Brief:  Using someone else’s descriptive trademark can be fair use.

In Brief:  A trademark has to meet minimum standards of creativity for a copyright registration.

In Brief:   An emoji trademark wasn’t used in commerce.

For the Mother Cluckers trademark saga, we need a little background about goodwill. A trademark establishes a connection between the owner’s goods and services and the consumer. That connection is the goodwill in the trademark. In order to be effective, a trademark assignment requires the assignment of the goodwill attached to it. 

Assigning goodwill along with the assignment of a trademark isn’t form over substance.

Molson Coors Beverage Company sells a hard seltzer called Vizzy. Future Proof Brands, LLC sells a hard seltzer called Brizzy. Future Proof sued Coors for trademark infringement alleging that Vizzy is likely to cause confusion with Brizzy.  

Even when two product names sound similar, a likelihood of confusion isn’t automatic.

The US Supreme Court won’t be weighing in on some interesting cases in the world of IP. Here are just a few of them by topic:
Copy

• rights in Fictional Characters
• Right to Challenge Patents
• Trademarks

Most people are familiar with Apple Inc. and its apple logo. Apple Inc. and its products are ubiquitous and pervasive. At any time, a person can be wearing one of their watches, talking on one of their phones and watching a video on one of their tablets.

PrePear is a new app that allows the user to save and organize recipes, create meal plans, shop efficiently for food and prepare healthy foods. PrePear adopted a pear logo, which makes sense considering the pun in the name. When PrePear sought to register its pear logo as a trademark, USPTO’s Examining Attorney didn’t see a likelihood of confusion between the pear logo and any other logo. The Examining Attorney cleared the application for publication.

Then, Apple filed an opposition.

In 2012, Veronica Morales registered the trademark, BLUE IVY, for her event planning company. Four years later, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s company, BGK Trademark Holdings, LLC filed a trademark application to protect, BLUE IVY CARTER, (named after Beyoncé’s daughter) for entertainment services.

That’s when the fight began.

Brooklyn Brewery (“Brewery”) has been around for more than 30 years. Brewery sells craft beers all over the country. Brooklyn Brew Shop (“Brew Shop”) was founded in 2009 and sells beer brewing kits.

In 2010, Brewery started receiving calls from customers trying to reach Brew Shop. So Brewery emailed Brew Shop about it and suggested that Brew Shop “keep an eye on it”.

Apparently, neither side was too worried about customer confusion at that time. Brewery and Brew Shop started collaborating on projects related to beer making, including co-branded beer-making kits, promotional events, books on beer making and educational beer making programs.

It was a match made in beer heaven. Until May 2015.