Posts Tagged: "Reddit"

While readers of this website will be well aware of the damaging impact of “patent troll” rhetoric that has reached the highest levels of American political discourse, many players in the trademark space have been shining a light on the issue of “trademark trolls” in recent years. Trademark trolls can take several different forms, according to a December 2015 article published in the INTA Bulletin. Generally, a troll will register a trademark, often viewed as a frivolous mark by others in the industry, and then demand licensing payment, threaten litigation or issue serial takedowns on e-commerce platforms through assertion of the mark. These can include companies that file for domestic trademarks for a mark owned by a foreign company that hasn’t yet entered that market or entities, including individuals, who claim trademark use and registration to threaten infringement or issue takedowns against other entities, even when their use of the mark is in unrelated areas. Last spring, the word “troll” was thrown around once or twice to describe Faleena Hopkins, a romance novel writer who was asserting her trademark rights to the use of the word “Cocky” against other writers using that word in their book titles. Last June, changes to Canadian trademark laws that shifted requirements for trademark registration from first-to-use to first-to-file had sparked some fears that trademark trolling could result.