This is the story of cannabis fertilizer producer infringing on the trademark of the senior user. In Athena Incorporated v. Advanced Nutrients, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle), Athena sought a preliminary injunction against trademark infringement by Advanced Nutrients for using not just the name, but the logo…
Concord Music Group et al. v. Anthropic PBC was a case in the Northern District of California involving another artificial intelligence company defending itself against hypothetical infringement. Anthropic is a technology company whose main product is an artificial intelligence called Claude. Anthropic trains Claude by creating a training corpus, which consists of large amounts of…
An employer sued a former employee and his new employer in North Carolina state court over allegedly divulging trade secrets in Atkore v. Keith D. Dinkheller et al.. Late last year, the defendants brought a motion to dismiss all counts in Atkore’s complaint, obtaining a somewhat surprising result. Mr. Dinkheller had worked in numerous leadership…
BBK Tobacco and Foods v. Central Coast Agricultural Inc. was a case in the District of Arizona set in the now-familiar landscape of cannabis-related IP disputes. BBK manufactures smoke-related products such as rolling papers bearing the trademark RAW, and Central Coast Agricultural, Inc. (CCA) markets and sells cannabis products — and attempted to register the…
Westmont Living, Inc. v. Retirement Unlimited, Inc. is a trademark infringement case that originated in the Eastern District of Virginia and was appealed to the Fourth Circuit. At issue were competing motions to dismiss. A senior-living company called Westmont Living had the registered trademark WESTMONT LIVING, which they claimed Retirement Unlimited (RUI) infringed with its…
As one of my attorney mentors once said, mistakes can happen – it’s what you do upon learning of the mistake that counts. In Barbera v. Grailed, LLC, plaintiff photographer was sanctioned for failing to comply with discovery in the Southern District of New York. The picture in question was of Jonah Hill that was…
Teradyne v. Ace Test Systems Inc. was a case that began in the Central District of California, but made its way up to the Ninth Circuit for a fair use analysis. With an eye toward the Supreme Court case of Google v. Oracle, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s claim…
OpenAI v. Open Artificial Intelligence Inc. is a case currently in the Northern District of California that pits an AI David versus an AI Goliath — but in a classic reverse trademark confusion case. OpenAI is the owner of the popular ChatGPT service, and Open Artificial Intelligence, Inc. (OAI) is a company that sprung up…
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…