Welcome back to another edition of Merely Informational and Incapable Marks.

The above neighborhood Applebee’s is on my usual route to going anywhere from our home, so I’m predicting I’ve passed by well more than 10,000 times.

The temporary “Dining Room Open” signage is a recent addition from a few months ago, when Minnesota

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

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 

Does Sanas Health Practice Ltd. (“Sanas Health”) think that Daenerys or Sansa will win at the end of the wildly popular Game Of Thrones series and ultimately sit on the Iron Throne?  Sanas Health filed two applications for the mark “QUEEN OF THRONES” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Interestingly, the Applicant’s

We’ve been stalking Kevin O’Leary’s nutty Mr. Wonderful trademark application, for a while now.

In April, we thought the USPTO would refuse registration of Mr. Wonderful for nuts, based on this:

In June, we were shocked to see the USPTO missed issuing the obvious refusal, and in August, we noted and reported

Welcome to another edition of Genericide Watch, where we consider brands on the edge, working hard to maintain brand status and exclusive rights, while trying to avoid trademark genericide.

The primary meaning to the relevant public decides genericness, so trademark owners will try to influence how consumers understand the word, to maintain at

One of the most common defenses to patent infringement is that the asserted patent is invalid. The reasons for invalidity regularly range from lack of utility, to incorrect inventorship, and even to fraud (as I’ve recently written about). Often, the defendant asserts that the patent is invalid for lack of novelty or non-obviousness–pointing