Posts Tagged: "trademarks"

Fraudulent Trademark Ownership Claims Lead to Near $4 Million Punitive Damages Verdict

On November 8, a Central California jury entered a verdict awarding $3.9 million in punitive damages against Internet financial platform ConsumerDirect. The verdict comes weeks after U.S. District Judge James Selna granted a motion for sanctions  after finding that ConsumerDirect fraudulently represented its ownership of unregistered trademarks while obtaining a preliminary injunction in U.S. district court against Array.

CAFC Orders Response from Apple and USPTO in Ongoing APPLE JAZZ Battle

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) this week ordered Apple, Inc. and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to respond to a petition for writ of mandamus filed by the owner of the APPLE JAZZ trademark, who has been embroiled in a fight with Apple, Inc. over rights to the mark since 2016. Charles Bertini, who owns APPLE JAZZ, petitioned the CAFC last week, asking the court to direct the USPTO to issue a final decision on its petition to cancel Apple’s mark, APPLE (Registration No. 4088195) for nonuse/ abandonment on the ground that Apple never used the mark in commerce for entertainment services listed in the Registration Certificate.

Assessing the Arguments: Practitioners Predict Likely Loss for TRUMP TOO SMALL Applicant

Oral arguments were held yesterday in Vidal v. Elster, with most observers concluding that the justices are unlikely to grant trademark applicant Steve Elster’s bid to register the mark TRUMP TOO SMALL for t-shirts. Unlike the Court’s recent prominent trademark decisions in Matal v. Tam and Iancu v. Brunetti, there seemed to be little controversy on the part of the justices in Vidal v. Elster over whether the First Amendment is implicated here. Below is a roundup of comments from trademark practitioners on what they thought stood out during the oral arguments.

Justices Skeptical that Refusal to Register TRUMP TOO SMALL Violates the First Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in Vidal v. Elster, the latest in a line of recent cases probing the intersection of the First Amendment and trademark law, following 2017’s Matal v. Tam, 2019’s Iancu v. Brunetti, and this year’s Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products.  As in Tam and Brunetti, the Justices are being asked in Elster to review the constitutionality of a restriction on federal trademark registrations—this time, the prohibition under Section 1052(c) of the Lanham Act on the registration of living persons’ names without their consent, sometimes called the “Name Clause.”

CAFC Says Fraud in Incontestability Filing Does Not Kill Trademark Registration

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday ruled in a precedential decision  that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) cannot cancel a trademark based on the filing of a fraudulent declaration under Section 15 of the Lanham Act. Section 15 of the Lanham Act deals with acquiring incontestability status for an already-registered trademark. In the present case, the attorney for Great Concepts, LLC submitted a false declaration to the USPTO in an attempt to obtain incontestable status for the mark DANTANNA’S for a steak and seafood restaurant.