Category - "Trademark"

Review Your Portfolio Every Which Way

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WARNING: major trademark nerd content to follow… only those seriously interested in quality assurance need read on!

Seriously, we’re here to share a tip that may help you spot anomalies in your trademark portfolio, thus saving money… and heartache… and priority battles… later on. Here goes: We all know that it’s important to generate and review docket reports listing upcoming filing deadlines. (We like weekly meetings for that purpose.) But it’s often a good idea to add the following to the mix: produce and review a spreadsheet that lists your active registrations and applications in alphabetical order by country, then by mark. Like this:

Country Name Trademark Name Class Trademark Status Application Number Filing Date Publication Date Registration Number Registration Date Next Renewal Date
Australia DRINKER BIDDLE 45 Pending 123456 10/30/15
Benelux DRINKER BIDDLE 45 Registered 789101112 10/30/15 789101112 10/30/15 10/30/25

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Give Your Brand Some Love

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When it comes to trademarks, the phrase “use it or lose it” is fitting.

If a trademark is used properly, your rights in the mark can last forever.  Fun fact:  The oldest registered trademark in the USA is more than 130 years old, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (meaning it was registered in 1884)!

Other trademarks haven’t fared so well.  For example, the mark DRY ICE used to function as a brand – meaning it distinguished a particular product from those sold by other businesses.  Over time, however, consumers started using this mark incorrectly, and eventually understood it to be the generic name of the product itself rather than the source-indicating brand (i.e., all mist produced by solid carbon dioxide is now called “dry ice”).  As a result, everyone – not just the trademark owner – can now use this mark to refer to the product.

So, how do you use a trademark “properly” to avoid losing these important rights?  Let’s face it:  You’re in a long-term relationship with your brand, so it’s important to give it a little love.  The key is remembering that trademarks are special.  What we mean is that trademarks are different from ordinary words, so they should be treated as such.  The more a trademark owner can do to make its mark stand out from the words around it, the stronger that mark will be.

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INTA 2016 Trends: A Bigger Platform and A Changing Role for Trademark Lawyers

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More than 10,000 trademark attorneys from around the world celebrated the annual meeting of the International Trademark Association (INTA) this week by descending on Orlando like a flock of migrating birds.

It is quite literally the largest gathering of IP lawyers to be found anywhere, and for more than a century this meeting has served as a remarkable assemblage of thought leaders, talented practitioners, and representatives from the biggest and most important companies on the planet. After several days of meetings where we network and discuss the‎ hottest topics in branding, we have all come away with deep thoughts about where the law and practice of trademarks is heading in the years to come.

This year, some key trends we identified from the front lines provide a glimpse of a new path for trademark law, brand managers and trademark lawyers:

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Top Twelve Tips for Avoiding the Foreign Filing Deadline Crunch

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Our corner of the IP world is chock-full of minutiae – powers of attorney, legalized declarations of intent to use, merger certificates, you name it.  So how do we manage all those details and still meet dozens of filing deadlines every week?

Very carefully.

Seriously, here are a few tricks we use to tackle foreign trademark filing and renewal requirements. These tactics help us meet deadlines with time to spare, and without having to go back to our clients multiple times to request additional documents. We’re all about efficiency!

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Global Brand Protection – A 50,000 Foot View

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So you’ve protected your trademark in the USA – nice work!  But you have longer-term aspirations to take your business abroad.  What are some things you should be thinking about now, or actions you should be taking?

First, think about your long term brand goals.  Once your goals are clear, take steps to understand the costs of global protection, and make efficient tradeoffs between those costs and maximizing protection. Continue reading “Global Brand Protection – A 50,000 Foot View”

Our Second (Sort of) Secret Weapon: Time-of-Filing Trademark Watching Services

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You might remember from Tore DeBella’s post that we just love letters of protest . They can delay or even avoid the need to file formal opposition proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. But wait — how do you learn about conflicting applications *before* they’re published for opposition purposes? Many watching services don’t notify you of conflicting applications until *after* the application has been published. That’s almost always too late to get your letter of protest granted.

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Our (Sort Of) Secret Weapon: Letters of Protest

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It was a mere 43 years ago, in 1972, when Steely Dan first mused “times are hard/you’re afraid to pay the fee/so you find yourself somebody/who can do the job for free.” The “somebody” in Steely Dan’s hit song, appropriately titled “Dirty Work,” was almost certainly not a reference to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (in fact, it likely had a more subtle, less appropriate meaning), but the reference could apply nonetheless. How does one let the PTO do their trademark enforcement “dirty work? By filing a letter of protest, of course.

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