We’ve covered many trademark and brand management themes over the last eleven years, this falls in the category: The Right-Sizing of Trademark Protection?

As reports emerge about the recent Coronavirus fear driving people to clear store shelves to stock their home pantries and freezers, a Hot Pockets TV ad hit me.

Clearly consumer packaged

A week ago, over at The Fashion Law, an Independent Source for Law, Business and Culture, an enjoyable trip down memory lane was published about the history of trademark protection regarding Louboutin’s red-colored sole mark.

What I hadn’t seen before now is Christian Louboutin’s quote “then it popped”:

“The concept shoe, with its

Since the origin of trademark use guidelines, there has been immutable, black and white legal direction against using brand names (and the trademarks that protect them), as nouns or verbs. If you’ve seen more flexible rules, please share.

Yet, marketers have recognized the power verbs have over nouns and adjectives.

Highlighting the 

One of my friends, when playing blackjack and asked to “cut the deck” after it has been shuffled, consistently admonishes without hesitation: “Thin to win.”

Given the trademark story for today, you may end up believing the opposite.

A 6-year trademark fight between Frito-Lay and Real Foods ended this month.

Frito-Lay opposed Real Foods’

When thinking about brands comprising religious matter, I think of EZEKIEL 4:9.

The EZEKIEL 4:9 brand has been registered as a trademark for bread since 1990.

The brand owner had to clear some chaff from the Principal Register to do so, threshing this EZEKIEL as abandoned, and gaining this EZEKIEL by assignment.

It presently

Let’s be very clear, today is April Fools’ Day, but this is not an April Fools’ Joke.

It’s not every day Seth Godin volunteers a guest post, but Thursday was that day.

Friday we published Stop Bullying the Entrepreneurs, 33 comments and counting.

This isn’t the first time Seth has spoken out against trademark

Let’s all hope that the Supplemental Trademark Register is not on the death watch.

It appears though to be on life support, at times, and especially with the USPTO’s heightened focus on “merely informational” matter, including laudatory messages.

This is a common basis for registration refusal nowadays: “Merely informational matter fails to function as a

Earlier this year I posted about a trademark dispute regarding the use of the term “Square Donuts” for square-shaped donuts. The case involved proceedings both in federal court and at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), between the Square Donuts cafe in Indiana (which claimed decades of prior use and a trademark