Trademark disputes involving breweries are nothing new, with breweries battling each other, wineries, and even cities over trademarks. We can now add estates of dead celebrities to the mix, as the Estate of Elvis Presley continues its battle against UK-based BrewDog over its ELVIS JUICE I.P.A.
The Elvis Estate first attempted to resolve
Recently, I attended the University of Minnesota’s celebration of “40 Years of Gopher Justice,” an event honoring the institution’s University Student Legal Service (“USLS”), a non-profit organization that provides UMN students with free legal services. The celebration included a panel on a contemporary topic in student advocacy: “revenge porn.” The topic isn’t relevant
The question for the day is not, why did the chicken cross the road, but rather, why did the chicken file an ex parte Letter of Protest with the Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Examination Policy at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), just a few months ago?
To get to
There was a time when a certain kind of small business owner — strapped for cash — with a meager promotional budget, easily could be tempted to adopt a “clever” name, as a “short-cut,” to “play off” a well-known, iconic brand, but in the end, he or she probably was convinced by counsel that doing
Best Buy was the subject of some intense criticism at the end of last week when Chris Morran of The Consumerist Blog and Mike Masnick of the Techdirt Blog took Best Buy to task and Mike went so far as to label Best Buy a “trademark bully” for sending a cease and desist letter to
Okay, nobody wants to be a "loser," unless, of course, you happen to be the biggest one, but that’s beside the point, because that’s not the L-word I’m talking about today.
No, I’m talking about a much more traditionally positive L-word, as in "leader," but as I learned earlier this week, at an
There has been a recent (over the last two years) rash of lawsuits by former NCAA athletes alleging a right to recover money arising from the exploitation of their likenesses in video games. Recently, the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in the case Keller v. Electronic Arts, Inc. (complaint here). For a summary of the case and
Do you suppose that the Mall of America ever thought about its brand name being associated with a "roof collapse" when it signed on and paid for the naming rights at the aging Mall of America Field, the nearly thirty year old inflatable indoor venue "formerly known as" the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, located in Minneapolis
Years ago I recall hearing a veteran trademark lawyer warn intellectual property continuing legal education attendees, "When your toolbox only has a hammer in it, everything in your world starts to look like a nail."
Fair enough. It’s time for all of us to revisit the contents of our professional toolbox.
Last week, following the firestorm of criticism surrounding Best Buy’s cease and desist
It’s not every day you get a chance to use that phrase in a headline. But, what may become known as the "The Cayman Kerfuffle", presents the perfect opportunity.
Would a reasonable person find these confusingly similar?
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$51,000 Blue Cayman $30 Blue Cayman
Let’s see, one is a sleek, pricey, well-engineered, high