• Posts Tagged ‘coexistence agreement’

    It Just Seems Wrong UPDATE

    by  • July 26, 2016 • trademark • 0 Comments

    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...

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    A Short Lesson on Trademark Coexistence Agreements

    by  • August 19, 2014 • trademark • 0 Comments

    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...

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    It Just Seems Wrong

    by  • May 19, 2014 • trademark • 0 Comments

    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...

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    Another Dirty Co-Existence Agreement

    by  • June 2, 2012 • trademark

    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...

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