Property, intangible

Class 46 brings our attention to the auction of a Spanish brand for a department store chain “Galerías Preciados.” Fogasa, an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Education, acquired the family of marks as the result of a bankruptcy. Fogasa has tried to auction the brand three times; in 1997 the value was… Continue reading

Not surprisingly, Levi Strauss & Co. v. Abercrombie & Fitch Trading Co. is a case about enforcing the “arcuate” pocket stitching design on Levi’s jeans. Levi’s is not one to be meek in enforcing its registered trademark, shown below:But it’s butting up against a litigious player in its own right, Abercrombie & Fitch (various dockets… Continue reading

William Patry is vocal in his disagreement with Nimmer about whether § 411(a) of the Copyright Act requires the issuance of a Certificate of Registration before suit can be filed. Patry says “yes,” Nimmer says “no.” 2 Nimmer on Copyright § 7.16[B][1]. CHM Industries v. Structural & Steel Products, Inc. demonstrates the mischief that can… Continue reading

Adding insult to injury after yesterday’s post, in which the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision that Oren Tavory wasn’t a co-owner of the NTP patents, in a separate decision the Federal Circuit affirmed that he also owed NTP the attorneys’ fees it incurred defending against his copyright suit. Mr. Tavory… Continue reading

A couple of ownership cases of interest. First, Oren Tavory failed in his effort to join in the NTP jackpot also known as the RIM settlement – he’s not a co-inventor because he didn’t have evidence that his contribution to the invention was more than simply the exercise of ordinary skill in the art.  Tavory… Continue reading

This is the final post in the series on Tacori Enterprises v. Rego Manufacturing. As well as claiming copyright in the ring design, Tacori also claimed that the ring design was Tacori’s protected trade dress and sued for trademark infringement. Tacori has filed a trademark application for registration of the trade dress in the ring… Continue reading

There have been a lot of posts about the government’s seizure of the MONGOLS trademark, used by a biker gang. You can find blogging about it here, here and here, and commentary here and here on what it means under trademark law principles. Ryan Giles at the Law Vegas Trademark Attorney had the comment that… Continue reading

Awhile back I did a survey on ice cream flavors.  One of the flavors in the survey was Cherry Garcia, a Ben & Jerry’s flavor.  According to the PTO records, the trademark was originally registered by Ben & Jerry’s but was later assigned to Jerry Garcia’s estate in 1997. The Grateful Dead’s attorney passed away recently and I… Continue reading

I blogged here about the defendant’s attack on the validity of an assignment and registration in Tacori Enterprises v. Rego Manufacturing. As a refresher, there were two parties that participated in the design of a ring, Haig Tacorian, acting as the President of Tacori Enterprises, and Garo Karounian, a designer for his sole proprietorship Anais… Continue reading

The IP Law Blog digests an interesting software licensing case. An independent contractor software developer worked for a number of years writing applications for his client. When the relationship ended the copyright (and trade secret) lawsuit ensued. The Ninth Circuit found that the client had not just a license to use the software, but an… Continue reading