Posts Tagged: "generic trademark"

On Wednesday, June 30th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Royal Crown Company, Inc., et. al. v. The Coca-Cola Company which vacated and remanded an earlier decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) regarding the use of “ZERO” trademarks on soft drink beverages marketed by Coca-Cola. The Federal Circuit panel, consisting of Circuit Judges Pauline Newman, Kathleen O’Malley and Richard Taranto, found that the TTAB had erred in its legal framing of the question regarding the claimed genericness of Coca-Cola’s mark and failed to determine whether the mark was at least highly descriptive if not generic.

In recent weeks, the U.S. romance publishing industry has been roiling over a trademark issue which has been less-than-affectionately referred to as Cockygate. According to various news reports, romance writer Faleena Hopkins has been asserting a trademark she registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to prevent the use of the word “Cocky” in the titles of adult romance novels which have been published by other writers. This trademark policing campaign has sparked public outcry and has prompted action from industry organizations like the Romance Writers of America (RWA), which has consulted with an intellectual property lawyer to seek advice regarding the issue.

A jury in the Southern District of California entered a special verdict form in a trademark case playing out between a couple of American pop culture conventions. The verdict shows that the jury found in favor of plaintiff San Diego Comic Convention against a group of defendants using the “COMIC-CON” mark to publicize a similar event organized in recent years in Salt Lake City, UT. The verdict also awards $20,000 in corrective advertising damages to San Diego Comic Convention for defendants’ infringement of multiple trademarks held by the San Diego event organization.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 16, 2017 that Google has not become a victim of its own success – that is, its Google trademark is still an enforceable brand for an online search engine and has not become generic.

VeRO is ebay’s Verified Rights Owner program. VeRO allows a right’s owner (someone who has a verified trademark, copyright, etc.) to request removal of an item. A company by the name of Mad Dogg Athletics, Inc. (MDA) is a member of the eBay VeRO Program and uses this program to enforce the nearly one hundred trademarks it owns, which include: spin, spinning, spinner, spin yoga, spinfitness, and spin daddy. With that said, only MDA’s Spin® bike can be called that, and so my client’s “spin bike” listing was removed due to use of the word spin.