Update: The 9th Circuit has affirmed, in an opinion that only further confuses matters. The analysis is this: Trademarks are assignable. Co-existence agreements are enforceable. Contracts are assignable unless doing so changes the terms or the document says otherwise, and neither is the case here. Therefore, the co-existence agreement was assignable. I have no...
Read more →The restaurants in the Benihana chain have two different owners, divided by territory. Defendant Benihana, Inc. (“BI”) owns the BENIHANA trademark in the United States, Central America, South America, and the islands of the Caribbean, the “Territory.” Plaintiff Benihana of Tokyo, Inc. (alert! noisy autoplay link) (“BOT”) owns the rights to the BENIHANA trademark...
Read more →I don’t know whether this case is an unintended consequence or an ill-considered strategy. In any case, I think the outcome is wrong. We have four different parties using somewhat different trademarks for strip clubs.* Their relative order of priority, and the marks, is this: Owner Marks Priority date Spencer (defendant) CRAZY HORSE CLEVELAND...
Read more →You all know that I’ll be having a “what were they thinking!” moment when I see a trademark case with a caption something like Del Monte v. Del Monte. We’ll start with the court’s opinion on the wisdom of the arrangement:
Read more →I just read a post by my friend Neil Wilkof entitled The Dirty Little (Or Not So Little) Secret Of Trade Mark Law. In it, he talks about co-existence agreements and too often their tolerance of confusion rather than avoidance of it. And then I ran across a fairly uninteresting and poorly decided case...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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