Pinnacle Pizza Co. v. Little Caesar Enterprises, Inc., does some contract interpretation on ownership of trademarks in a franchise relationship – not the trademarks originally licensed, but a trademark created by a franchisee. Pinnacle Pizza was a franchisee for Little Caesar Enterprises pizza (I’ll use “Little Caesar” to refer to the company; the trademark...
Read more →In Angel Flight of Georgia, Inc. v. Angel Flight America, Inc., the 11th Circuit decision left open more questions than it answered. Two entities with an admirable purpose, providing free transportation for donated organs and medical patients, were using the same trademark, ANGEL FLIGHT, in the same territory – plaintiff Angel Flight Georgia (AF-GA)...
Read more →Update: See more recent post on related case here. In large corporate entities, intellectual property is often placed and moved around to improve the company’s tax position. The IP department may not be consulted on the shift, finding out only at the last minute when it is asked to execute the assignments that the...
Read more →It turns out that the success of Trailer Trash Barbie was indeed the fact that it was a Barbie. After Paul Montwillo (doing business under the name Paul Hansen) and his business partner, William Tull, settled a lawsuit Mattel brought in 1997 against them for their sale of Barbie dolls turned into “Trailer Trash...
Read more →Francisco Coll-Monge (deceased at the time of the suit) founded two non-profit companies in the 1960’s, Inner Peace Movement, Inc. (IPM) and Peace Community Church (PCC), to promote self-actualization programs. He registered various trademarks, including INNER PEACE MOVEMENT and PEACE COMMUNITY CHURCH, in his own name. The district court got it wrong but the...
Read more →A blog on IP ownership appropriately starts with Bryant v. Mattel, Case 2:04-cv-09049-SGL-RNB in the Central District of California, otherwise known as Mattel v. MGA Entertainment. This, of course, is the case about Bratz dolls – seems the designer, Carter Bryant, worked at Mattel twice and claims to have designed the dolls between his...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
© 2013 Pamela S. Chestek. All rights reserved.