–Susan Perera, Attorney As the year draws to an end, so does my time here at DuetsBlog. After almost 3 years of blogging and working as an attorney at Winthrop & Weinstine, I have decided to transition to an in-house trademark opportunity. While I am excited to take on this great new adventure, I am… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: Susan Perera
Have a Wonkaful Halloween
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food–Susan Perera, Attorney It’s hard to believe, but it’s just two weeks away from the parade of pumpkins, witches, and skeletons outside your doorstep. In anticipation of the upcoming candy-filled holiday, I decided to look into a lingering trademark question – what came first, the Willy Wonka candy company or Willy Wonka & the Chocolate… Continue Reading
B-Dubs’ Yellow Protected
Posted in Agreements, Food, Infringement, Law Suits, Non-Traditional Trademarks–Susan Perera, Attorney Last week Jim Hammerand at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported on locally based Buffalo Wild Wings (also known as “B-Dubs”) ending its lawsuit against Buffalo Wings & Rings, the suit had included claims of trademark and trade dress infringement. It appears that under the terms of the settlement agreement, Buffalo Wings… Continue Reading
3D Printing Concerns
Posted in Infringement, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Patents, Product Configurations–Susan Perera, Attorney The tech industry has opined on the conflict between 3D printing and intellectual property for a few years, and the debate may be heating up. 3D printers allow a user to create and “print” a 3-dimensional object through the use of a digital file and a “printer” that dispenses material in successive… Continue Reading
Tweet Fight
Posted in Law Suits–Susan Perera, Attorney Most of us are fairly familiar with the use of Twitter. Like Facebook, this social networking giant has inserted itself into our lives, it is almost difficult to find a business that is not active on Facebook, Twitter, or both. You can even follow us on Twitter at @duetsblog and @susanperera (no… Continue Reading
Noticing Your Exposure to Color Marks
Posted in Product Configurations–Susan Perera, Attorney A few weeks ago I wrote about the use of unique colors in trademarks and logos as a potential way to differentiate your brand. Like using distinctive colors as part of a trademark, many companies use distinctive colors on their actual products to act as source identifiers. While a color trademark for a… Continue Reading
Donuts Now in HD!!
Posted in Advertising–Susan Perera, Attorney While passing through the bakery at our local grocery store I noticed this sign for HD Donuts. Donuts in high definition you ask? Nope, they’re just highly delicious. Does it seem like every brand owner is trying to take advantage of the HD hype these days? Even those brands that have nothing to… Continue Reading
Industry Color Clusters
Posted in Branding–Susan Perera, Attorney I recently read Nora Reed’s blog post, Locate your Brand on the Color Spectrum, on Logoblog. Nora identified a trend, which you may have noticed from time to time, that some industries tend to congregate in a specific color scheme. For example, fast food logos tend to be in the red/yellow category, while… Continue Reading
Duck Duct Debate
Posted in Branding–Susan Perera, Attorney Every once in awhile I run across a product and find myself wondering… why did they name it this? I recently ran across the Duck Tape brand shown below. My first reaction was “duck” is a commonly misused term to identify what should be called “duct” tape, and this brand owner interestingly… Continue Reading
Social Media Enlightenment
Posted in Social Networking–Susan Perera, Attorney The Royal Wedding is only days away, Sharon and I have both blogged about it recently, and the Royal Family is certainly recieving a lot of media attention. For a family and political tradition that Americans often view as stuck in the past, the Royal Family has indisputably been embracing new forms… Continue Reading
Pick A Fight With A Warlock, Trademark A Sheen-ism
Posted in Idea Protection–Susan Perera, Attorney Media spectacle, train wreck, or marketing bliss, it’s up to you, but you can’t escape the news about Charlie Sheen’s rambling webcasts, or the overnight success of his Sheen-isms. If you haven’t had your fill, feel free to take a moment at this website dedicated to sharing some of Sheen’s memorable statements. Last… Continue Reading
That Purple Cereal
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Fair Use, Food, Infringement, Marketing, Product Packaging, Sight–Susan Perera, Attorney As you likely know, many of the Duets Blog bloggers were involved in a full day trademark CLE last week. One of the sessions focused on the issues facing private label brands and the line between identifying your competitor by using similar packaging and infringing on their trademark or trade dress. Along those… Continue Reading
Spot that Spout
Posted in Product Configurations–Susan Perera, Attorney It was time for a new kitchen faucet at our house and after opening the box of our new Delta faucet we noticed this image on the side panel of the box. The registration for this kitchen faucet product configuration mark (shown farthest to the right on the box) can be seen… Continue Reading
Levi Pockets a Favorable Court of Appeals Decision
Posted in Dilution, Law Suits, Trademark Bullying–Susan Perera, Attorney Dusting off the archives, you may remember a 2009 blog post by Tiffany about a trademark infringement lawsuit initiated by Levi Strauss against Abercrombie & Fitch over the back pocket design on the respective parties’ jeans. In that case the jury determined that the pocket designs, shown below, were not confusingly similar;… Continue Reading
Is your Cell Phone Service Deceptively Misdescriptive?
Posted in Advertising, Marketing–Susan Perera, Attorney There seems to be few industries with such fiercely combative advertising as wireless phone service providers. Reminiscent of the cell phone map advertisement war in 2009, 4G advertising is certainly on its way to the same level of tension. Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have all rolled out 4G advertising in the last year,… Continue Reading
More on Exposing Two-Face Brands
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Trademarks, TruncationThis past summer, as you may recall, I wrote a DuetsBlog post entitled Exposing Two-Face Brands. Susan Perera helped me expand this post to be featured in the January issue of Minnesota Business Magazine. The online version of the expanded article can be found here. Enjoy and please share your thoughts and perspectives.
Right Royal, Protecting a Royal (To-Be’s) Name
Posted in International–Susan Perera, Attorney Just across the pond, the UK has been aflutter with the news of the royal engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton since the story broke back in November. As with many high profile events, this one has spurred some creative ways to profit from Kate’s newly elevated status. One area of… Continue Reading
Serving Lawsuits With Your Morning Orange Juice
Posted in Infringement, Law Suits–Susan Perera, Attorney Do these containers seem similar to you? Confusingly similar? That is what Coca-Cola, owner of Simply Orange, is claiming. In a recently filed trade dress and patent infringement suit Coca-Cola claims that its Simply Orange container is nonfunctional, contains a patented closure lid, and the new Trop50 packaging is likely to deceive and… Continue Reading
Provocative Uniforms, Protectable Trade Dress?
Posted in Law Suits–Susan Perera, Attorney Move over Collar and Cuffs, a new trade dress suit has hit the Texas courts and it is set to rival the Chippendale headlines from earlier this fall. The Texas restaurant, Twin Peaks, recently filed suit against the owner of a new Arkansas restaurant called Northern Exposure. (If you haven’t caught onto the innuendos… Continue Reading
The Fair Use Defense to Nowhere
Posted in Fair Use–Susan Perera, Attorney Last Wednesday I wrote about the parody fair use defense to trademark infringement in connection with the Facebook v. Lamebook lawsuits. Since then another party has asserted the fair use defense, this time in regards to copyright infringement. Last week the on-line news source, Gawker, published images of more than 20 pages… Continue Reading
Facebook Needs Dislike Option for Lamebook
Posted in First Amendment, Infringement, Law Suits, Social Networking–Susan Perera, Attorney Like most 20-somethings who went to college during the rise of this social media monster, I am quite familiar with Facebook. However, I wasn’t aware of the website Lamebook until the current legal dispute began. Lamebook, a self-proclaimed, “humor blog” was designed to allow people to share the most “ridiculous” things posted on Facebook. The… Continue Reading
Color Marks & One Company’s Long Haul to Color Mark Protection
Posted in Famous Marks, Non-Traditional Trademarks–Susan Perera, Attorney I was surprised to see the six registrations pictured above for color marks come out of the USPTO this month. And I bet that most of you can identify the owner of these marks without even checking the registrations. (If you must, registrations: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Although… Continue Reading
A Monster Mash of Halloween Store Marks
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Dilution, Marketing–Susan Perera, Attorney It’s that time of year again, when retail stores featuring ghosts, goblins, and all things spooky begin to appear. This year multiple parties went trick or treating at the USPTO to register their trademarks for Halloween retail store services, and apparently they weren’t all reading Steve’s post from earlier this year regarding party… Continue Reading
Unauthorized Use Double Whammy?
Posted in Infringement–Susan Perera, Attorney Always on the look out for interesting shopping finds, my husband snapped these photos of a product at a local Lands End store last week. I couldn’t find the backpack on their website to get any further information about it but I do find this use of BMW pretty interesting. We often… Continue Reading
Duets Blog Authors
Steve Baird
Just so you know, I'm all about brands and the law, both professionally and personally. I regularly annoy family and friends in retail stores by focusing on product labels—not to buy the product, but to read the fine print and ask, "Who owns these brands" and "Did they really register those marks?" More...
Brent Lorentz
Although I wish I could say my path to the law was the result of a lifelong dream or calling, it was more the result mere curiosity and an affinity for leather-bound books. More...
Tiffany Blofield
Although my initial career path was to be one of the Supremes (not the musically talented ones with platform shoes and sequins, but rather, the nine wearing sensible shoes and pressed black robes in DC), I will likely stay in Minnesota as I have never lived anywhere else. More...
Brad Walz
My law career started on the ice…as a defensive hockey player (we’re not talking professionally…and if I were, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into law). More...
Derek Allen
In hindsight, writing about creativity and the law may have always been in the cards for me. I began training for a career in litigation at an early age by finding ways to disagree with pretty much anyone about pretty much anything. In my longest-running “case,” I argued with my middle school math teacher, Mrs. Jabs, for the better part of four years over whether, even if I got the right answer, I had to show my work to get full credit. More...
Martha Engel
Although my interest in gadgetry and my aptitude for math eventually led me to become an engineer, my ad executive father and artistically gifted mother fostered an appreciation for the creative from a young age. More...
Anjali Shankar
When I was in elementary and middle school, I loved writing short stories. Creativity and imagination seem to come naturally to people when they are young. More...
Timothy Sitzmann
I have always considered myself to be a creative person. Full disclosure: I'm not claiming that I've created anything good, merely that I have created things that exist.More...