Friedland Vining Intellectual Property Blog
Bourbon and Coke, Served with a Splash of ®
Two recent decisions have resulted in a tasty trademark cocktail. In the first case, the TTAB found “zero” reason to sustain the opposition proceedings filed by Companhia de Bebidas das Américas - AMBEV (“Ambev”), maker of Pepsi, against The Coca-Cola Company’s...
Supreme Court wants Response from Shoe Giant on Trademark Circuit Split
In March, Nike, Inc. was among the majority of nearly 8,000 cert respondents each term when it waived its right to file a response to a cert petition in a case dealing with the question of whether a defendant in a trademark case can still challenge the mark's validity...
Are Publicity Rights Sexy Too?
On Friday, a Federal Judge refused to dismiss General Motors LLC (GM) from a lawsuit over the use of Albert Einstein's image in magazine advertisements, ruling that an Israeli University might have inherited the genius’s publicity rights. Last year, The Hebrew...
Oprah Winfrey Dismissed from “Own Your Power” Suit
Oprah Winfrey, Hearst Corp., and others were dismissed last week from a trademark infringement suit in New York federal court regarding the catchphrase “Own Your Power” after the Court determined that her use of the phrase was a form of fair use. The Plaintiff, Own...
TTAB Sustains Opposition to GUANTANAMERA Mark
Almost four years to the date, the TTAB sustained an opposition to register the mark GUANTANAMERA for cigars for the second time, finding the mark primarily geographically deceptively misdescriptive under Section 2(e)(3) of the Trademark Act. To deny a geographic mark...
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