In re Audemars Piguet Holding SA was a precedential decision handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). The case concerned trade dress, and had some surprising twists and turns. Audemars Piguet (Audemars), maker of luxury watches, filed an application for the trade dress in the design of two of their watches. The…
A children’s book author came to me about a demand letter she had received from another author’s lawyer. The letter alleged that there were “too many” similarities between our client’s book and the other author’s book, and that our client had infringed the other author’s copyright. The letter was accompanied by a chart like the…
Kohls v. Ellison is an ongoing case in the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota concerning the state’s anti-digital manipulation law (Minn. Stat. 609.771), which prohibits the use of so-called deepfakes in political campaigning. Deep fakes are digitally manipulated videos, pictures, or audio that generally make people appear to be doing something that never happened. …
Walgreens Co. v. Charles R. Walgreen is a case from the Northern District of Illinois that featured the behemoth retailer Walgreens (Walgreens Co.) suing Charles Walgreen, the great-grandson of its founder, for trademark infringement. After losing a motion to dismiss, Walgreen Co. filed an amended complaint saying that Charles Walgreen was not only infringing on…
Raw Story Media v. Open AI, Inc. was a case filed in the Southern District of New York involving the generative artificial intelligence app ChatGPT. The court dismissed the case before the parties even started discovery. A group of news media companies sued the collection of companies that make up ChatGPT. The organizations suing Open…
Crocs v. Effervescent was a case appealed from the District of Colorado to the Federal Circuit. The appellants were Double Diamond and Mojave Desert Holdings, who make “Dawgs” shoes. After suing a number of other companies for patent infringement, Crocs had turned its sights on Dawgs — but Dawgs filed a counterclaim that Crocs was…
The Northern District of California distinguished “exceptional” cases under the Trademark Act (meriting an award of legal fees) from cases in which arguments were made in good faith, but simply failed. The complaint in Blue Bottle Coffee v. Southern Technologies was dismissed. The case then centered around the defendant’s trying to get attorney’s fees from…
The Trademark Office is increasing its filing fees and adding some new ones. At Kaufman and Kahn, we generally let people know many months before their renewals are due — but now is the time to file any new application or to file any fifth-year or 10th-year renewals if they are ripe for renewal. (A…
The Second Circuit reversed a district court opinion that cited the plaintiff’s history as an active litigant as a reason to side step the Second Circuit’s discovery rule in Michael Grecco Productions v. RADesign et al. Grecco is an accomplished photographer who has enforced his rights prolifically in federal courts. In copyright infringement cases, the…
The Trademark Trial and Appeals Board (TTAB) recently had one of its decisions reversed by the DC Circuit. Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac [“Cognac Institute”] v. Cologne and Cogac Entertainment centered on the plaintiff’s opposition to the defendant’s mark COLOGNE AND COGNAC ENTERTAINMENT. Certification marks have the same protections as trademarks. The opposers, the Cognac…