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Alicia Sharon
Associate
Venable LLP
Alicia Sharon is an associate in Venable LLP’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice in Los Angeles. She focuses on litigating intellectual property disputes, including trademark, patent, copyright, and rights of publicity. Alicia represents clients in federal court, before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), and in Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP) proceedings. She assists in managing high-volume trademark enforcement programs for multinational companies by maintaining enforcement databases, preparing cease and desist letters, and negotiating settlement agreements. Alicia also has experience with trademark prosecution. She performs trademark audits, as well as domestic and international trademark clearance work.
In 2020, Alicia worked as a legal intern for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee where she worked on the impeachment trial team supporting House impeachment managers. She also worked on other policy issues under the Committee’s jurisdiction, such as voting rights, DOJ oversight, and criminal justice and bail reform.
During law school, Alicia served as an extern in the Legal Affairs Office of a television studio, where she drafted contracts and releases, and assisted with television production issues on scripted and non-scripted programming, including clearance, guild, and rights issues. Alicia also served as a law clerk in the Hardcore Gang Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, where she assisted with drafting pre-trial motions and trial briefs, prepared trial exhibits, and assisted with voir dire and witness preparation.
Prior to her legal career, Alicia spent three years working as a security operations analyst in the Office of Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security and served as a regulatory and policy intern at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Recent Articles by Alicia Sharon
Peloton’s petitions to cancel Mad Dogg’s registered trademarks for SPIN and SPINNING (in Classes 41 and 28) for genericism ask the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to do what it has rarely done before – cancel marks that were distinctive at the time of filing for losing distinctiveness due to the public’s overuse of the terms. While the TTAB has refused to register or cancel registered marks that were generic terms at the time the trademark applications were filed, the TTAB has rarely cancelled a mark that was distinctive when registered, but over time, became a generic term and lost its distinctiveness, as Peloton argues in its petitions. For example, “Kleenex” is often referenced when discussing generic brands, and while Kimberly-Clark Corporation has faced petitions for cancellation of its “Kleenex” mark, “Kleenex” has remained a registered mark of Kimberly-Clark Corporation since 1924.