There are at least two kinds of buzz converging at the moment (perhaps three), especially for fashion forward and fit oriented trademark types here in Minneapolis.
On the one hand, with the holidays upon us it’s hard to avoid the barrage of billboard ads in the Minneapolis skyway promoting the first brick and mortar entry
We’ve written a lot about single color trademarks here over the years. Weems, the owner of the Flexilla brand has unleashed its federally-registered chartreuse-colored non-traditional trademark for “compressed air hoses” against Plews for selling air hoses with a “bright florescent green color” — a color that Plews claims online “reduces chances of tripping
Back in 2009, we wrote about what was then Kimberly Clark’s pair of
Last week a federal lawsuit was filed in Minnesota by Blu Dot to protect alleged intellectual property rights in the floor lamp shown on the left below. The accused “strikingly and confusingly similar” floor lamp shown on the right below is sold by Canadian Rove Concepts:
So, what type of intellectual property do you
Seeing this Caribou Coffee skyway billboard was a good reminder to me of how much we hear about the importance of transparency in our relationships, including those with brands we love:
It appears that the prevalence of society’s use of the word “transparency” may be at an all time high, where the
We’ve written before on the subject of non-traditional trademarks and how look-for advertising can be quite helpful in not only educating consumers that a color or other design feature should stand out in their mind as performing the helpful role of a trademark, but in convincing the USPTO too.
Earlier this month the USPTO
–Dave Holt, Solicitor & Alex Watt, Partner, Browne Jacobson LLP
In the European Union, Coca-Cola has recently followed in the stumbling footsteps of fellow global super-brand Nestlé, falling at the final hurdle in its attempt to register the three-dimensional shape of its iconic ‘Coke bottle’ in classes 6, 21 and 32. You can read the
— Jessica Gutierrez Alm, Attorney
If you watch any amount of T.V. or happened to catch either of the AFC or NFC Championship games last weekend, you’ve probably seen one of the recent cell phone carrier ball commercials.
Initially, Verizon created this commercial, wherein a series of colorful balls rolling down a ramp are used
Loyal readers know how important look-for advertising can be in making the difference between establishing trademark ownership in the shape or configuration of a product, and being left with nothing but a goose egg (as opposed to a Big Green Egg). That’s not to say, the clunky words “look-for” are required, yet something equivalent
We have some razor sharp readers and guest bloggers. We’re deeply thankful and especially grateful when our readers and guest bloggers send us real life illustrations of marketing pitfalls we’ve identified, sliced and diced here on DuetsBlog. They provide more great teaching tools.
Hat tip to our own James Mahoney of Razor’s Edge Communications for