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For me, creativity has always been a way of standing out from the crowd, doing the unexpected, and adding passion to my work. My parents nurtured my creative side from an early age, gifting me Legos, subscribing me to Popular Science, and encouraging me to get involved in school activities with an artistic angle. I remember creating a hoverboard using a leaf blower in fifth grade, winning the science fair in sixth, and joining my small-town high school newspaper shortly thereafter. Soon, I began designing beautiful centerfolds, reporting on the latest tech topics, and writing poems and short stories. I also began to apply my creative skills to my schoolwork, adding unexpected pizzaz to my assignments.

In college, I continued to develop my creative skills. I taught myself how to code websites, crafted logos for non-profits, tried my hand at techie DIY projects (parabolic wi-fi dish, anyone?), and began painting abstract art. I also continued to apply my creative design and writing skills to the classroom and leadership positions in student government. Creativity helped me stand out in these venues and present my ideas in compelling ways. Furthermore, infusing imagination into everything I did made tasks fun and fulfilling. This strategy also worked well for me in law school, where I developed my love for all things intellectual property: patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, right to publicity, you name it. That passion continued to develop after law school as a clerk to a federal judge in the District of Minnesota.

 

Join me on this blog as I return to my journalist roots, discuss contemporary topics in intellectual property, and add creative commentary to the marketplace of ideas.

The saltiest trademark news in the last week surrounds singer Cardi B’s application to register the marks “Okurr” and “Okurrr,” both slang for “Okay???”–but pronounced in a hip, rolled-r trill, sometimes with a shady tone. Or, as Cardi describes, it: the sound of a “cold pigeon in New York City.” If you haven’t heard it

A little over one year ago, I blogged about Tesla’s Roadster being launched into outer space, asking who owns the right to the “Spaceman” rider’s mark? Today I post a different thought-provoking question about electric car company Rivian: Does Rivian’s use of a Ford F-150 body when testing its electric truck technology in public

From time to time, I post squirrelly thoughts. Today, I wonder: Should a large company with famous, distinct trademarks sometimes hold back from aggressively enforcing those trademarks, even when doing so might at first appear to be a useful competitive strategy? I’m sure many executives at McDonald’s–the worldwide fast-food chain that it is so ubiquitous 

Who comes to mind when I list the following character traits: lives in a dystopian metropolis, has a deceased parent, fights criminals, rides a motorcycle, has seemingly-superhero strength, is fearless, has dark hair, and–oh, by the way–his name is “Wayne.” More than that, you learn all these facts about Wayne by watching a trailer for

Readers of this blog may recall that in the past year, I wrote extensively about the U.S. Supreme Court case of Oil States v. Greene’s Energy. But I paid little attention to another important case decided around the same time: SAS Institute v. IancuOil States centered on whether the USPTO’s inter partes review

Happy Halloween from DuetsBlog! I write today regarding a scary subject: unregistered intellectual property. The horror! Ask any IP professional about registration, and you’re likely to hear that registration is one of the most important steps in protecting IP. Whether it is a patent, trademark, or copyright, registering IP often provides the IP owner

It’s fall, and you know what that means: football season! For many, this means a return to the couch each weekend to spectate America’s most-watched sport. But the popularity of doing so appears to be in decline. This shift isn’t only affecting the NFL, but also college football as well, as ticket sales continue

Credit: Local Solutions

I write today regarding a squirrelly thought: are the benefits of registering a hashtag trademark almost always outweighed by the consequences? In light of a recent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) ruling and the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure’s (“TMEP”) provisions, hashtag marks offer much less protection than traditional character-based marks,

As Steve blogged earlier this week, we’ve had a lot of “zero” on the mind lately—marks related to the word and numeral. It got me thinking about the letter ‘O,’ especially since it has been in recent trademark news.

If you missed it, The Ohio State University and Oklahoma State University are now