Loyal readers know that trademark rights are dynamic, use-it-or-lose-it intellectual property rights.

So, when signage announces a name change, it jumpstarts the question of trademark abdonment:

The above signage and reporting around the sale and rebrand of SuperAmerica convenience stores seem to suggest the SuperAmerica name will cease to be used, bringing Speedway coast-to-coast.

Time will tell though if there is a plan in place to avoid legal abandonment of the SuperAmerica trademark, so that it does not become part of the public domain, available for others to adopt.

We explored this important question a few years ago, when we discovered Chevron’s efforts to maintain exclusive rights in the Standard trademark:

“Of course, there is a delicate but critical balance in avoiding trademark abandonment following mergers and consolidations. Trademark types often will hear this question from brand managers after learning that three years of non-use constitutes presumptive abandonment: What is the minimum amount of use necessary to retain rights in the brand and trademark?

It is a dangerous question — especially when phrased this way — because ‘token use’ of a trademark was rejected as a ‘use in commerce’ in the U.S., back when our current intent-to-use trademark registration system was ushered into law during 1989. In outlawing ‘token use’ as a now failed way of developing trademark rights, the definition of ‘use in commerce’ was amended to add this critical language, requiring the use to be: ‘the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade, and not made merely to reserve a right in a mark.’

So, asking how little a use is enough to retain rights, starts to sound a lot like a use made ‘merely to reserve a right in a mark.’ Congress did indicate that what constitutes use ‘in the ordinary course of trade’ will vary from one industry to another. It also noted that ‘use in commerce’ should be ‘interpreted flexibly’ so as to encompass various genuine, but less traditional, trademark uses. And, the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (TMEP) notes that these three factors are important to consider: (1) the amount of use; (2) the nature or quality of the transaction; and (3) what is typical use within a particular industry. TMEP 901.02.”

It appears most of the SuperAmerica trademark registrations recently have been renewed, so with ten year terms, it likely will be several more years before we begin to see what, if any, use is relied upon at the Trademark Office to maintain registered rights in the SuperAmerica mark.

In the meantime, what do you think, is there a plan in place to maintain rights in SuperAmerica?

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. Iancu. Oil States centered on whether the USPTO’s inter partes review (“IPR”) process (challenging a patent at the USPTO, rather than in court) was constitutional. SAS followed up with a seemingly less-pressing issue: whether, when the USPTO institutes an IPR to reconsider a patent by accepting an IPR petition, the USPTO must decide the patentability of all of the claims of the patent that the IPR petitioner challenged in the IPR petition. The Supreme Court ruled that IPR is constitutional in Oil States and that the USPTO must decide the patentability of all of the claims which were challenged in the accepted IPR petition in SAS.

Just this week, I was attending a “Supreme Court Preview” event hosted by the Eighth Circuit Bar Association. One of the topics was upcoming patent cases before the Supreme Court. I’ll admit; they’re not as juicy as last term (but perhaps only lawyers would have salivated over last year’s cases). However, one gave me a squirrelly thought: Return Mail v. United States Postal Service. The major issue in Return Mail is whether the federal government is a “person” who may petition to institute review proceedings before the USPTO.

Credit: Channel 3000

Technically, Return Mail doesn’t involve IPR, but rather a different proceeding called covered business method (“CMB”) review. CMB review, as its name implies, is limited to review of business method patents–that is, patents that claim a method or apparatus for performing data processing or similar operations relating to the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service. But CMB review is very similar to IPR; a person files a petition with the USPTO seeking review, and the USPTO decides whether to institute proceedings. For example, in the Return Mail case itself, Return Mail, Inc. sued the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) for infringement of a business method patent described as: encoding information about the name and address of intended recipients in the form of a barcode, returning undeliverable mail to a processing location, scanning the barcode, obtaining the corrected information, and then providing that information to the sender to choose whether to resend with correct addressee information. (Description in the Federal Circuit opinion.)

Credit: Postal Reporter

Does Return Mail’s patent seem a little…obvious? Sounds like USPS might have a good shot at challenging the patent via CMB review, right? That’s what the USPS thought, so it petitioned for CMB review of certain claims of the patent. There’s just one problem: current patent law says that only a “person” can institute CMB review, and that person must meet certain other requirements, which include being sued or charged with infringement. Is the USPS–an arm of the government–a person? Current patent law does not define the term. In a short opinion, the Federal Circuit held that the federal government is a “person” for the purposes of CMB review. There was a fiery dissent. The Supreme Court granted cert on this specific question.

And here is where the squirrely thought arises. Just like CMB review, IPR review starts with a petition by a “person.” But unlike CMB review, an IPR petitioner need not have been sued or charged with infringement. Indeed, an IPR can be instituted by any person “who is not the owner of a patent.” 35 U.S.C. § 311. The USPTO must review all claims challenged in a petition if the USPTO accepts the petition. But the USPTO might not want to do that in every case–as in SAS. If the government is a person, can it escape SAS‘s mandate by filing its own petition for IPR limited to the claims it actually thinks should be evaluated?

The process would go something like this: (1) the USPTO receives an IPR petition from a third party and reviews the petition, (2) the USPTO determines it would like to institute review on some of the claims of the patent challenged in the petition, but perhaps not the same claims as those listed in the petition, (3) the USPTO works in collaboration with another governmental agency (say, for example, the Attorney General or USPS), (4) the other governmental agency files a petition for IPR of the same patent, but on the claims and grounds desired by the USPTO, and (5) the USPTO accepts the governmental petition, achieving the goal of escaping SAS‘s mandate that it decide the patentability of claims listed in the third party petition that the USPTO thinks need not be considered. And voila! Return the earlier petition for IPR as uninstituted to sender.

Thus, affirming the Federal Circuit could provide the government an escape from SAS, so to speak. While reversal could preclude agencies like the USPS from seeking cost-effective review of patents with the USPTO. What do you think?

Trademark owners should beware of a scam involving the Amazon Brand Registry. There have been several reports of rogue users exploiting the Amazon Brand Registry through the unauthorized modification of trademark registration records at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). These scammers are submitting fraudulent requests to change the email addresses for trademark registrants, and thereafter, updating the brand ownership records with the Amazon Brand Registry.

Continue Reading Watch Out: Unauthorized Changes in USPTO and Amazon Brand Records

It all started here, nearly ten years ago now, with our inaugural DuetsBlog post called Dr. No and the Parade of Horribles. We used a Seth Godin post called Looking for Yes as our launchpad.

The rest is history. Seth revealed himself a fan of the blog on our 4th birthday, what a surprise. He generously has engaged with us since then, weighing in on topics ranging from branding to trademark bullying to Velcro’s fear of trademark genericide, with so much more in between.

Recently, Seth generously agreed to answer the 12 questions below. What should we ask next?

Continue Reading Seth Godin Answers 12 DuetsBlog Questions

As the drum beat grows for our interview of Seth Godin tomorrow, it is only fitting that we are reminded of the importance of embracing tension and the ruckus we’ve set out to make here.

Seth’s fabulous and penetrating new book called This is Marketing, will be released tomorrow, no doubt another best-seller, a must-read for any lawyer who cares to make change for the better.

Until then, thanks again to Fred McGrath for this second video, capturing how we embrace tension:

Throughout our nearly decade-long journey and exploration called “DuetsBlog,” we have been blessed and we remain grateful to have met so many incredible new friends along the way.

Next Tuesday, we have the remarkable privilege of publishing here on DuetsBlog an interview with Seth Godin, a generous person, overflowing with thoughtful insights and valuable perspectives.

In the meantime, many thanks to Fred McGrath for his interest and generosity in sitting down with me to capture a conversation about DuetsBlog, editing our discussion in 3 videos, here’s the first:

An NFL team and an NBA team are duking it out over trademarks with the word “UPRISING” to be used with eSports.

What is eSports you may ask? It is professional competitive video gaming. Anyone with a teenager has probably heard of Fortnite. Fortnite is a world-wide phenomenon. Over three nights during TwitchCon (which is a Fortnite competition), Fortnite averaged around 65,000 viewers per day across Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. However, there are also numerous other video games such as Hearthstone, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Star Craft II and Overwatch, among others. Indeed, Overwatch is related to the trademark dispute involving the owner of the New England Patriots.

The dispute involves the marks BOSTON UPRISING and NORTH UPRISING. Specifically, last month, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft’s company, Kraft Group, filed a Notice of Opposition against an application filed by the NBA’s Toronto Raptors for the mark NORTH UPRISING (stylized) in connection with clothing and other merchandise that is to be used with video games. The Kraft Group alleges that the stylized mark in the application is similar in stylization and font of its applied for stylized mark for BOSTON UPRISING.

Continue Reading The New England Patriots Are Ready To Battle Off The Field

–James Mahoney, Razor’s Edge Communications

Every now and then, I find pearls floating in the tide of print advertising. These two, for example.

First is the Kiton ad, one of a series the company is running. I liked the whole look and feel of it right away, but didn’t know anything about the company.

I like it even better after doing a little research and learning that Kiton prides itself on its fabrics and the quality of the clothing it creates using them.

These ads work on multiple levels. First, they stand out both for their striking simplicity and for the visual puzzle: why the red dot covering the head? (At least, it’s red to my color-challenged eye.)

Beyond that, the more you look at one of the ads, the more attention to detail you see. There’s deep creative thought behind these.

More important, the first ad you see imprints visual clues that unmistakably identify every subsequent ad you see as a Kiton. In the sea of luxury-good advertising, you too often have to glance at the company name to see whose ad it is.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the big creative questions is, “How can we indelibly link the company or product name to the creative idea?” Kiton’s campaign achieves this, not least by linking the red-dot head with the red dot on the Kiton i.

Incidentally, the dot over the head probably has an additional benefit for Kiton. Rates and residuals for models vary depending on the image used. Because the Kiton models are unidentifiable, their rate is likely lower than if we could see their faces. Small change in the larger scheme of things, but a benefit for Kiton nevertheless.

The other pearl is this ad for the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M. In case it’s not clear, the tuxedoed Daniel Craig is up to his chin in water. It’s a great visual that pays off the promise that the watch “will take you from the bottom of the sea, to the center of attention, and the top of the world.” Form and function married with fashion illustrated by a brilliant concept.

A loyal reader brought to our attention the logo for a rather interesting chiropractic practice:

Without too much pain, can we all agree on the likely inspiration for the above name and logo?

What’s really interesting is that the name Thorassic Park has been federally-registered since 2004, so there is little doubt that the names may co-exist without likelihood of confusion or dilution.

But, what about the visual identities? Don’t they seem far too close, even if the businesses are very different? It appears the chiro-logo is almost a fossil now, having been around twenty years.

How can that be, given the close proximity between Orlando, Florida and Bradenton, Florida? What are the odds that the Jurassic Park franchise owner hasn’t discovered the chiro-logo before now?

And, what are the odds a patient of Thorassic Park in Bradenton might need an adjustment after visiting Jurassic Park in Orlando? Might there be an opportunity for a shuttle service in between?

So, if you are the brand police for the Jurassic Park franchise, does the chiro-logo give you back pain? For the creatives in the crowd, does your spine tingle seeing this painstakingly cloned logo?