On My Mind Blog

Traditional lawyer demand letters can backfire.

You want your lawyers to be strongly assertive when you believe that your trademark rights are being used in an infringing or generic way.  But formal demands that the improper activity must cease have, on occasion, been posted to social media and ridiculed there, or have just been ineffective.

When a company decides to discontinue the primary use of a mark, the company nevertheless may wish to maintain its exclusive right to use that mark because the mark may continue to be associated with the company.  

The exclusive right to use an arguably descriptive trademark or service mark can be strengthened by obtaining a federal trademark registration and by filing a declaration of incontestability, when available.

How you can identify a “merely informational matter” and what you can do if it is refused registration.

It is possible to register something other than a word, slogan or logo as a trademark in the U.S.

The rules for using intellectual property as collateral can be counter-intuitive.

The Community Trade Mark ("CTM") has had significant regulatory changes including, since March 23, 2016, being called the European Union Trade Mark ("EUTM").

Recipe protection is rare but possible.

Parody involves copyright and trademark considerations.

European design protection may be faster, cheaper and better than trademark protection under some circumstances.