The question of LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION is the signal test to determine if a trademark infringement claim is valid. This blog is about trademark law. It's also about copyright law, free speech mostly as it relates to the Internet and legal issues related to blogging.
As for me, I'm Ron Coleman, a trademark lawyer in New York. More precisely, I'm a commercial litigator and business attorney whose work focuses on copyright and trademark infringement claims involving the Internet--including advising clients how to avoid them. I am also a writer and notional general counsel of the largely notional Media Bloggers Association. My firm, Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP, has offices in New York and New Jersey. The opinions expressed here are only mine, at best.
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I’ve been known to sound the alarm about the rush to register trademarks, and all the more so to register anticipated trademarks. I argue that — oh, forget it, even I’m tired of saying this over and over again. Here’s what I said, one of the times I said it:
For well over nine out [...]
At least in some parts of the country, LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION is something judges actually sometimes don’t find. Out there, for example. No, the other side — yeah. The left. As
Remember the silliness over the attempt by a certain attorney to secure trademark rights for CYBERLAWYER? The notable part about how that went down was that the foolishness was abated by virtue of a cacophony of webby mockery, a completely virtual beclownment of the first order.
So how you figure someone else has taken up the [...]
Originally posted 2007-07-05 16:45:27. Republished by Old Post Promoterstory straight, asking opinions of chefs but not IP lawyers. He trots out the big guns — our friend Bob Cumbow, of course — and positively dices and slices the proposition.
Originally posted 2006-07-11 17:14:18. Republished by Old Post PromoterThis is an important decision: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has partially reversed the earlier ruling of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (full decision
Originally posted 2008-06-05 20:51:21. Republished by Old Post PromoterRemember Vuitton v. Dooney? It’s over. Reports the Dooney & Bourke in the trademark dispute involving their “It Bag” monogram . . . and the
Also covered in
If you’ve seen one disgruntled-former-law-associate more “successful” trademark cases in a certain federal judicial District he knows. I couldn’t have lost them much harder, but maybe there would have been a few more laughs along the way.
Had you heard about a travel agency and a sued the operators of the Mexico Watch newsletter, because its domain is LatinIntel.com. Of course, the reason for that is that it is using the commonly accepted abbreviation of “intel” as short for “intelligence.” It’s common shorthand, especially within government circles, to refer to gathered intelligence as [...]
a link to the picture (I see no fair use basis to republish it here). It’s a big goofy old missile, like the size of two station wagons.
Pfizer sells tiny little capsules.
Let’s look at the opinion — go ahead, it’s
We reported earlier on a related case in this area implicating the use of trademarks to sell merchandise online via “unauthorized distributors.” A new decision in this area was issued yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. We represented the defendants and, again, got key help from David Marc [...]
I was on a panel called “Trademark Rights vs. Free Speech” at the Fall 2000 INTA David Bernstein. (Five years later I’m still glowing from the reflected brilliance!) The moderator was IP superstar virtual) link between him and Rabbi Toviah Singer, certainly the two were aligned sympathetically. Rabbi Singer later told [...]
A potentially troubling (from the teams’ point of view) thought from the Southern District of New York in a case brought byhere.
(HEADLINE UPDATED) Tilt of the chapeau to law student Joe Gratz’s Circuit Court the Supreme overturned?
