After asking friends, family, and strangers sitting next to you at the bar what they think of it, you have finally decided on a name for your newest product. Now you want to protect it with a federal trademark, but how do you do that? First, I assume that you have already searched the mark … Read more
I have already written about aspects of copyright law, but exactly is copyright protection? Copyright protects original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. One way to think of it is it protects creative works that you can somehow see or hear again and again. Works of authorship include the following categories: … Read more
Often when people are trying to find a trademark for their good or service, they want a mark that hearkens back to whatever it is that they are selling. They want their customer to “know” what it is the customer is buying. But as we have discussed earlier, descriptiveness can be bad. So what is … Read more
Often when looking to register a trademark, we have to discuss registering a word mark versus a logo. Clients often default to registering words in a very specific font. However, that locks the mark into that font. Whereas, if we register it as a word mark, then a change in font doesn’t destroy the registration. … Read more
Ongoing disputes between Fitbit and Jawbone claimsthat Fitbit hired Jawbone employees, who in turn took Jawbone trade secrets and brought them to be used at Fitbit. Last week, a U.S. International Trade Commission judge ruled that Fitbit did not steal any of Jawbone’s trade secrets. Earlier, I wrote about protecting a trade secret, but what … Read more
In copyright law, several entities may own different rights in the same piece of material. One way this might happen is one someone builds upon the work of another and creates a derivative work. The original work’s author may still own the rights to the original work, but the newer author now has rights on … Read more
Most creative works are protected by copyright for a very long time, but not all and not forever. Those works not protected are said to be in the public domain. Once in the public domain, others can use the works without needing to obtain permission from (or pay royalties or license fees to) the owner … Read more
Intellectual property rights all come with their very own symbols. They are signs to others about what type of rights are being claimed. I am sure you have seen them, but not everyone is sure which symbol belongs to which right. So let’s go back to grade school, do a matching game. Didn’t know there … Read more
Intellectual property tends to be a land of first come-first serve. Patents are only awarded to inventions that are new and non-obvious, which means your invention isn’t the logical next step based on what is already out in the world. Trademark protection looks at what marks potential customers have come into contact with in connection … Read more
Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. §1052(a), is an absolute bar to federal trademark registration of immoral or scandalous matter. The ban on scandalous and immoral trademark registrations is not new. It first came into federal law in the Trade-Mark Act of 1905 and reaffirmed as part of §2(a) of the Act of 1946. … Read more