Posts Tagged: "trademark registration"

In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s ruling involving Nestlé’s attempt to register a four-finger bar shape as a trade mark in the United Kingdom, meaning – at least for now – it remains unregistered.

It appears that Beyoncé’s trademark filing activities raise the question as to whether she, through her trademark holding company, is attempting fraud on the USPTO. “Fraud” is a nasty legal word, but that is the proper term of art to use when there is a question about whether an applicant has been forthcoming and honest with the USPTO. Applicants before the USPTO owe a duty of candor, which if breached by the applicant is because the applicant is said to have committed fraud on the Office… It’s also possible that, if the couple never intended on making the goods and services claimed in the BLUE IVY CARTER application, they have no true intent to offer those same goods and services listed under the RUMI CARTER and SIR CARTER applications.

The news headlines are becoming ever more populated with stories of big brands trying and failing in some instances to register a trade mark for their product. Lindt infamously failed to register their signature gold foiled chocolate bunny in Germany, similarly Rubiks lost its bid to register the EU trademark for the puzzle. The latest addition to this string of companies was Nestlé who attempted and failed to register the KitKat design. Nestlé’s application for trade mark registration failed on the ground that the four finger chocolate bar design was not distinctive enough. This raises the question in the world of intellectual property law as to just what will surpass the trade mark test, and indeed what this test consists of within the UK.

Earlier this month, Kiss frontman Gene Simmons filed to trademark the “Devil Horns” hand gesture, but this unusual application was soon after abandoned. The application listed the date of first use as November 14, 1974, and the specimen of use was a photograph of Simmons flashing the hand gesture alongside Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl. Just two weeks later, Simmons reconsidered if he had valid trademark rights to the hand gesture, as he abandoned the application.

Kyiv, Odessa, Crimea, Novy Svet, Inkerman – not only these are the names of locations, but also the signs registered as trademarks for alcoholic beverages, and some cases, the companies themselves, in the Ukraine. The Odessa Sparkling Wine Company has been producing and selling ODESSA branded sparkling wine for more than 20 years now.  However, they have faced an unusual challenge when trying to register ODESSA trademark.

On June 21st, however, an administrative trademark judge at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) granted Blue Ivy’s motion for early discovery. The discovery is limited to the grounds of no bona fide intent and fraud on the USPTO. Blue Ivy alleges that, although BGK Trademark Holdings is claiming the use of the BLUE IVY CARTER mark for a wide range of goods and services, that there’s no true intent to use the mark in commerce at all.

The trademark application also gives some idea as to how immersive an entertainment experience Nintendo is hoping will be built at its themed areas in Universal parks. Along with arcade games and handheld game apparati, Nintendo is also seeking trademark protection for providing games via smartphone and providing games via a telecommunication network. The trademark application would also protect the mark on the organization and management of video game events, indicating that these themed areas could also host Nintendo video game tournaments just as the world is seeing an increase in eSports revenues.

Securing IP rights in China has been a priority for companies selling or manufacturing in China due to the country’s singular attitude to intellectual property, which has been much abused. Today 84.5% of counterfeits originate in either China or Hong Kong, and as the world becomes progressively more connected alongside the rise of e-commerce and cross-border exportation capabilities, increasingly there is a need for IP protection strategies of all companies to be adapted to Chinese policies.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on the cloudy Wednesday morning of January 18, 2017. Although the Justices posed tough questions and intricate hypotheticals to both sides, the tone of each Justice’s questions and their individual jurisprudences indicate an even 4-4 split, with Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Kagan, and Sotomayor favoring the USPTO, and Justices Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts favoring Tam. Of course, oral argument is often shaky, at best, when predicting the outcome of a case, especially one with such potential for a drastic overhaul of a body of law… Although no one can know for certain the outcome of Lee v. Tam, one consequence that appears very likely is that, if the Court does rule in favor Tam, it would strike the entirety of Section 2(a), not just the portion prohibiting disparaging marks that forms the central issue of the case. John C. Connell, counsel for Tam, went so far as to call that result “inevitable” in response to Justice Ginsberg’s question on the topic.

On January 22, Beyoncé filed a U.S. trademark application that seeks to protect the use of the trademark BLUE IVY CARTER on a wide variety of goods and services. The mark has been filed for goods and services in 14 different trademark classes… A challenge to the trademark will likely be coming from Veronica Morales, the owner of a Boston-based wedding planning company Blue Ivy, which has operated since 2009. On February 7th of this year, Morales filed a request for a 30-day extension to oppose the mark and TTAB granted that request the same day.

When President Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election starts gearing up for the 2020 election season, you will know it when you hear him say that he wants to “keep America great.” Trump has already filed two trademark applications to protect the use of this next incarnation of the political slogan which helped to put him in the White House… The story surrounding Trump’s decision to file the trademarks is a perfect example of his brusque style. An interview with Trump published by The Washington Post, also dated January 18th, describes how the then-President-elect stopped his interview briefly after saying that slogan to the interviewer to ask a lawyer to trademark that slogan. The Post’s coverage clearly states that he immediately wanted to trademark two versions of “Keep America Great,” one with an exclamation point and one without.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument in Lee v. Tam for January 18… The genesis of the case is a Portland, Oregon all-Asian-American band called The Slants, founded by petitioner Simon Shiao Tam. An application for trademark was made and the USPTO said “NO” on the basis that “The Slants” is a highly disparaging term and therefore must be denied registration under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act… The cultural and societal value of the free flow of speech trumps government regulation. The Supreme Court should uphold the Constitution and confirm the importance of robust political debate, cultural discourse, and the right to use ANY words as part of a personal identity.

One of the more exciting young talents currently playing in the National Hockey League is Johnny Gaudreau, a forward for the NHL’s Calgary Flames who is also known by the nickname “Johnny Hockey.”… U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4992448 protects the use of the standard character mark “JOHNNY HOCKEY” on goods in trademark class 25, which includes marks registered for clothing, footwear and headgear. Specifically, the mark has been registered for use on clothing goods such as shirts, sweatshirts and coats as well as footwear goods like shoes and boots.

In April 2015, the National Basketball Association’s Milwaukee Bucks announced that it was in the midst of a project to redesign the team’s logo. Reports indicated that the logo would retain a version of the deer’s head which had graced the team’s previous logo, but with a new green and cream color scheme… The TTAB petition filed by Jägermeister identifies a series of eight U.S. trademarks held by the liqueur maker as grounds for opposition to the Bucks’ ‘186 trademark application. The vast majority of these marks have only been registered for use in trademark class 33 which covers alcoholic beverages except for beers.

In late November, the Las Vegas NHL hockey franchise, which will begin playing with the National Hockey League (NHL) in the 2017-18 season, announced that it would be known as the Golden Knights. On December 7th, however, an office action issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office indicated that the USPTO had refused registration of U.S. Trademark Application No. 87147239, which would have protected the use of the standard character mark of “VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS” on entertainment services, specifically professional ice hockey exhibitions.