The body of law drawn from the precedents set by earlier decisions.
The USPTO properly refused to register ARTISAN NY for clothing because, like the registered mark ARTESANO NEW YORK CITY, the proposed mark conveyed the impression of clothing made by skilled tradespersons in New York. Substantial evidence supported the USPTO’s refusal to register the mark ARTISAN NY, for clothing, on likelihood of confusion grounds, the U.S….
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from April, May and June. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
Polish Supreme Court, Civil Chamber, 9 May 2019, Case No. I CSK 263/18 The Polish Supreme Court (Sąd Najwyższy) overturned the judgment of the Warsaw Court of Appeal (case no. I ACa 962/16) on the basis that courts should assess the overall similarity of trademarks, whether it is phonetic, graphical or conceptual. Conceptual differences not…
Sufficient evidence at trial supported finding that trade dress of iconic French press coffeemaker was nonfunctional; verdict against rival upheld. Bodum USA, Inc. (Bodum), which produces and sells what is recognized as an iconically designed houseware product, the Chambord French press coffeemaker, met its burden of proving at trial that the elements of the claimed…
District court correctly held that trademark owner failed to raise genuine factual issue as to secondary meaning of the asserted mark. A federal district court correctly found that a non-profit corporation that promotes and helps run the annual Fiestas de le Calle San Sebastian festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico lacked evidence to sustain its…
Introduction Defendant Masking is a strategy used in India by plaintiffs in IPR suits to avoid detection of the matter in the Cause List by masking the ‘main defendant’ with the other defendants. The Cause List in Indian jurisprudence are schedules of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day(s). It gives…
The mark owner had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the defendant—a competing seller of equipment to the cosmetics industry—more than four years before filing suit, establishing that it knew of the infringement at that time. Although cosmetics equipment company A.C.T. 898 Products, Inc. (“ACT”) convinced a jury that competitor W.S. Industries, Inc. (“WSI”) willfully infringed…
Cour de cassation, Chambre commerciale, March 27, 2019, Appeal No. T 17-28.213 The French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) overturned the judgment of the Paris Court of appeals (here) which had denied similarity between goods and services on the ground that they were only indirectly related, because the Court of appeals should have examined whether…
District court properly “looked through” an arbitration agreement between two groups competing over rights to the name to determine that it had subject matter jurisdiction under federal trademark law to adjudicate the dispute. A federal district court did not err in confirming an arbitration award pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. §9,…
The Uruguayan Criminal Court of First Instance Specialized in Organized Crime has ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites that retransmit sporting events illegally, thereby infringing the copyright to this content (Fox International Channels v. Puerto 80 Projects SLU). This is an important judicial precedent in Uruguay where no such blocking order had been…
