Starbucks is moving away from green straws, actually any plastic straws, to live a little more green. So, we’re unlikely to see any straw trademark filings, despite decent look-for advertising.
While Starbucks appears to have drawn the short straw at the USPTO on its efforts to federally-register a pair of green dot marks,
DJ Khaled and his son’s company sued an online retailer named Curtis Bordenave and his company, Business Moves Consulting, Inc., alleging that they are illegally using his and his son Asahd’s intellectual property.
Most of you likely know who DJ Khaled is, but I had not heard of him before reading about this dispute. When
Another fast food restaurant is coming to the City Center in downtown Minneapolis. It’s called Los Ocampo (meaning “the field“), and it’s apparently adopting this eye-catching trade dress:
That color scheme and the large, prominent non-verbal chili pepper left me wondering whether there is some sort of corporate connection with the Chili’s
-Martha Engel, Attorney
On a recent happy hour trip to HopCat, a brewpub chain with an incredible beer list of local and regional craft beers, I expected to find a trademark issue or two among the tap handles. However, instead, I was distracted by a “catsup” bottle (hah) positioned casually next to a bottle of
Toward the end of last week, a couple of friendly ironmongers (John Welch and Ron Coleman) had an interesting dialogue on Twitter, with some great insights about creativity and the law.
John noted that copyright’s requirement of “originality” is not the same as the requirement of “novelty” in patent law. Ron then
A couple of years ago, our friend John Welch over at the TTABlog reported about a white color trademark that had acquired distinctiveness, according to a rare precedential TTAB decision:
No, that’s not a roll of toilet paper, it’s a preformed gunpowder charge for use in muzzleloading rifles. And the applied-for mark
Recently, a friend and I were watching The Bachelor—I know, I should be ashamed. During one of the commercial breaks, a spot appeared on-screen showing a woman wearing an elegant dress walking through a hallway. She turns into a doorway, and blue, shimmering light projects onto her face, as if she was underwater. A
Last year we took a whiff of Hasbro’s application to register the smell of its Play-Doh® for “toy modeling compounds.” We didn’t think the application was ripe for a functionality refusal, but a refusal on the ground of a lack of acquired distinctiveness seemed like a certainty.
An Office Action issued on May 26th
Yesterday, while on the highway heading to a client meeting, I noticed a truck that looked like this:
It reminded me of the plentiful ink we’ve spilled over the years about singular iconic non-verbal logos that can truly stand alone. Remember Seth Godin’s generous insights shared, here?
Given the dominant display of
Earlier this month, a California federal judge kept alive a suit brought by the estate of famous jazz musician Thelonious Monk against North Coast Brewing Co. for trademark infringement and infringement of the right of publicity. The dispute centers around North Coast’s popular “Brother Thelonious” Beligan-style abbey ale (beer seems to be on the mind