Which Pizza has better ingredients and who is allowed to say so? Our two cases are Lanham Act court of appeals cases. The first, Pizza Hut, Inc. v. Papa John’s Int’l., 227 F.3d 489 (5th Cir 2000) (here), from the Fifth Circuit in 2000, relates to Pizza Hut’s claim the Papa John’s advertising using the phrase [...]
Please join us 9/27/2021 at 1:00pm for a discussion: United States Patent and Trademark Office Crackdown on Scammers. For years, owners of United States Trademark Registrations have been plagued by scam letters requesting payments to renews trademark registrations. Though trademark registrations must be renewed, these letters did not come from the actual USPTO but a [...]
The FENDI Decision is out! After 5 long years, the Shanghai High Court issued its final judgement in the case of Fendi v. Yi Lang. Defendant Yi Lang (no relative of this week's presenter, SoCal IP Partner Marina Lang) can no longer operate his "Fendi" stores in China, stocked with parallel goods. We will discuss [...]
This week we have a pair of IP cases about marking. First, a patent case, Lubby Holdings v Chung, where a vape device company should have marked its products with the patent number. Second, a trademark case, Piano Factory v Schiedmayer Celesta, in which a piano vendor marked its cheap pianos with a fancy name. [...]
Please join us on Monday, August 23 at 1:00 pm, when Mark Goldstein will lead a discussion of two recent cases, one addressing whether patents are invalid for claiming abstract ideas and the other about asserting trademark infringement resulting from the use of internet keywords that are the trademarks of another. (Access the cases by [...]
On Monday, August 12, Michael Harris will conduct a discussion of two cases, one dealing with the prior art status of a printed publication, and the other about unclean hands as a defense to trademark infringement. The 2021, Ninth Circuit case of Metal Jeans, Inc. v. Metal Sport, Inc. (case here) is the unclean hands case. [...]
On Monday, August 9, 2021, Chris Kopitzke will lead a discussion of the Copyright Office’s refusal to register the most recent version of the Golden Globe statuette, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that evidence submitted to prove non-use of a trademark was insufficient to establish a prima facie case of abandonment. In [...]
For our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, August 2, 2021 we will discuss the following: The intersection between the three types of IP protection available for products. As set forth by the Supreme Court in the TrafFix case in 2001 (here), product configuration cannot be protected as trade dress if the product feature [...]
Patent Assignor Estoppel and Cancellation of Trademark Registrations Under Section 14(3) Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, July 19, 2021 will be a discussion of a Supreme Court case finding patent assignor estoppel may not apply when there are post-assignment amendments to claims and a TTAB case ordering cancellation of registrations under Section [...]
Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist. Ct. 141 S.Ct. 1017 (2021) For our discussion, we will analyze how the Supreme Court expanded personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants. The majority held that a Court’s specific jurisdiction standard includes suits that sufficiently “relate to” a defendant’s forum contacts, even in the absence of a "causal [...]