T-Mobile Asserts Charitable Startup Lemonade Infringes Magenta Mark

By Gregory Lars Gunnerson

National Public Radio (NPR) reports T-Mobile has sent a cease and desist letter to startup Lemonade. For those unfamiliar with Lemonade, Lemonade is a public benefit corporation quickly growing in popularity, particularly with millennials, because the company donates all unclaimed money to charities of the policyholder’s choice. T-Mobile asserts Lemonade’s use of a color allegedly similar […]

Update from the AIPLA Biotech Committee

At the recent American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) conference, the AIPLA Biotechnology Committee met to discuss two biotechnology issues: 35 USC 101 legislation, and treatment of genetic resources (GR) and traditional knowledge (TK). Bob Stoll, former Commissioner for Patents at the USPTO and member of AIPLA’s 101 taskforce, led the 101 discussion as part […]

Generic.com: SCOTUS to Consider Whether a Top-Level Domain Creates a Protectable Trademark

By Nicholas J. Krob

Much to the chagrin of companies such as Bayer, DuPont, Westinghouse, and Motorola—former owners of trademark rights in, respectively, the terms “aspirin,” “cellophane,” “laundromat,” and “flip phone”— U.S. law does not protect terms that identify the general nature of a product or service itself rather than the source thereof, or “generic” terms, as trademarks.  What […]

IP Post-Brexit: What Does the “FEUture” hold?

By Julie L. Spieker

On December 12, the United Kingdom (UK) will hold a general election, in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes to secure a clear majority so as not to lose the prospect of Brexit after failing to leave the European Union (EU) by the end of October as previously promised. Currently, Johnson enjoys a healthy lead […]

Halloween Edition: Copyright for Banana Costume is upheld on A-Peel

By

The Third Circuit recently held that a banana costume qualified for copyright protection as Rasta Imposta, a retail wholesaler of Halloween costumes, sued Kangaroo Manufacturing, a costume manufacturer, for copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and unfair competition after Rasta discovered Kangaroo selling a banana costume that resembled one of Rasta’s costumes without a license. The […]

Non-obviousness: when failure equals success

A recent Federal Circuit Court decision demonstrates that evidence of prior failures to achieve desired results can be potent evidence of lack of predictability in a field, resulting in the non-obviousness of using a compound to treat a specific cancer, even though the drug target was identified as effective in a test tube. The decision, […]

If You Pop, You Better Stop

By Sarah M.D. Luth

In the latest battle of branding, the Italian government has confiscated approximately 250 tubes of the “Prosecco & Pink Peppercorn” flavored Pringles from several grocery stores in the Veneto region. The Prosecco flavored Pringles were seized on the grounds that the use of the term “Prosecco” was allegedly not approved by the wine’s consortium of […]

Fighting Against 170 Years of Prior Inaction—Uphill Battle for the USPTO in Recovering Attorneys’ Fees

By Blog Staff

Oral arguments commenced on October 7, 2019 in Peter v. NantKwest at the Supreme Court of the United States. For a brief summary of the issues, see the author’s previous post here. Appearing before the Supreme Court were Malcolm Stewart, representing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and Morgan Chu, representing NantKwest, Inc. […]

Faster Patent Application Examinations for 2019

By Kirk M. Hartung

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been working for many years to improve patent examination times. Processing and examining patent applications in a high quality and timely manner has been an important aspect of the USPTO 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. For the 2019 fiscal year ending in September, the USPTO has met their goal for […]

Trademarks: Property Plus Insurance

By Gregory Lars Gunnerson

Intellectual property is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. It is widely accepted patents, copyrights, and trademarks confer an exclusive right. Unlike patents and copyrights, the constitutional foundation for trademark law is the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, rather than the Intellectual Property Clause, […]