Actions which impinge upon the monopoly granted by an Intellectual Property right are considered infringements.
Any entity operating a fantasy sports platform would wish to display names of players and teams, for ease of identification and to make the platform as realistic as possible. Player or team names, however, where they act as source identifiers, would fall within the definition of a trademark, and their proprietors could enforce their rights…
Widow of longtime MAD artist Don Martin can go forward with mark infringement, publicity rights claims over publications that occurred within Florida’s four-year catch-all statute of limitations. The widow of MAD Magazine cartoonist Don Martin is not time-barred from pursuing trademark infringement and publicity rights claims against the publisher of MAD and DC Comics, to…
The Swedish Patent and Market Court (PMD) ruled out a likelihood of confusion between two figurative trademarks for “ghost” and “GHOST VODKA” based on their mere visual differences. In fact, the Court concluded that the sigs were dissimilar, without even analyzing the signs on a phonetical or conceptual level. A good outcome for the defendants…
On 2 March 2021 the Polish Supreme Court finally decided that the famous Polish boxer Dariusz Michalczewski had won his case against FoodCare sp. z o.o. for the “Tiger” trademark for popular energy products (III CSKP 5/21). The internationally renowned Polish boxer Dariusz Michalczewski used the nickname “TIGER” during his sporting career. His nickname was…
Retailer allegedly created knockoff goods and acted as more than a hands-off intermediary. Australia-based online retailer Redbubble, Inc., could be directly liable for third-party sellers’ infringement of trademarks owned by the Ohio State University, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has held. Unlike online retailers or auction houses that typically had been found not…
NIKE no longer had a legally cognizable interest in the validity of the preliminary injunction. NIKE, Inc., was precluded from appealing a district court’s preliminary injunction issued in November 2019 barring the athletic footwear giant from using the phrase “Sport Changes Everything” in an advertising campaign, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond has ruled….
The record, however, supported that “Bayside Breeze” mark was not infringed by “Boardwalk Breeze” as a matter of law. In a trademark infringement suit between competing sellers of automotive air freshener products, a federal district court erred in finding on summary judgment that “Little Trees” brand products with a scent called “Black Ice” was not…
It is not common that local Indian companies sue multinationals for infringement in India – and win. However, recently, just that happened: Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd. (“Parle ”) sued multinational retail giant Walmart India Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. (“Walmart India”) at the Bombay High Court for violating its trademark/trade-dress when it launched a deceptively similar…
At the end of August 2020, the Russian competition authority (the “FAS”) issued two important decisions aimed at allowing a non-authorized import of trademarked products into Russia (so-called “parallel import”). Specifically, the FAS said that two major automotive producers violated competition law by restricting the parallel import of their parts from outside Russia. These decisions…
Costco raised triable issues of fact as to its liability for infringement and counterfeiting and whether its use of “Tiffany” to describe a ring style was fair use. The federal district court in Manhattan erred in concluding as a matter of law that Costco’s use of the word “Tiffany” to describe diamond engagement rings amounted…
