Daniel Grigore

Associate

Womble Bond Dickinson

Daniel is an IP Litigation associate practicing out of Womble Bond Dickinson‘s San Francisco office.

Prior to joining the firm, Daniel served as a judicial fellow to Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. During law school, he served as a judicial extern at both the federal and state level: first with the Honorable William Alsup in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and then with the Capital Central Staff of the California Supreme Court. His work as a research assistant with the Paper Prisons Initiative helped pass Delaware’s Clean Slate Act (SB 111 & 112).

Recent Articles by Daniel Grigore

Chew on This: What the Bad Spaniels Trademark Decision Means for Free Expression and the Metaverse

In Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, a unanimous Supreme Court sided with Jack Daniel’s and sent dog toy maker VIP Products scurrying away with its tail between its legs. The decision held that VIP’s commercial use of a dog toy, designed to look like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, complete with droll variations on Jack Daniel’s trademarks, is not entitled to First Amendment protections for artistic expression under the “Rogers test.” Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F. 2d 994, 999 (2d Cir. 1989). Instead, it is subject to the Lanham Act’s likelihood-of-confusion test to determine if consumers would be likely to confuse VIP’s dog toy with Jack Daniel’s, no matter how parodic. While the justices felt that artistic expression versus trademark use was cut and dried in this instance, that is not always the case in litigation focused on NFTs and the Metaverse.

July 24, 2023

View All Posts