• Posts Tagged ‘TTABlog’

    Just Because You Don’t Manufacture Doesn’t Mean You’re a “Distributor”

    by  • July 16, 2015 • trademark • 1 Comment

    John Welch at The TTABlog summarizes a case that is characterized as a manufacturer-distributor dispute over the ownership of the mark “UVF861” for UV light bulbs. John does a thorough job summarizing the case, which I won’t repeat here. In its opinion, the TTAB applied the presumption that in a manufacturer-distributor relationship, the manufacturer...

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    One Cannot Put a Would-Be Franchise Back Together

    by  • February 10, 2014 • trademark • 0 Comments

    I was all stoked because one of the most complicated trademark ownership cases I’ve ever seen, C.F.M. Distributing Co. v. Costantine, was appealed to the Federal Circuit. Super! Clarification from a Court of Appeals on trademark ownership! Sigh. Affirmed under Rule 36 without an opinion. Oral argument here. The text of this work is...

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    Abandoned and Adopted

    by  • June 8, 2013 • trademark • 0 Comments

    Well, here’s a teaser of a case we might never know more about. The mark INTRAV has been registered since 1968 for travel agency services and is now owned by International Expeditions, Inc. A company called Christine E, LLC filed a petition to cancel the mark on the basis of abandonment: After diligent inquiry,...

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    The TTAB Comes to Boston

    by  • March 29, 2011 • trademark

    John Welch has done his usual stellar job of convincing the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to come to Boston to conduct a hearing.  Sponsored by the Trademark Committee of the Boston Patent Law Association, the Board will sit at the Northeastern University School of Law on April 29th in the afternoon.  The case...

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    When Do You Exist?

    by  • October 14, 2010 • trademark

    Once I did some legal research on unincorporated associations. How do you know when you have one? Is your regular Friday night poker game an unincorporated association?  (My aunt played poker with the same people for 50 years – surely that was an unincorporated association.) What about when members change, what happens then? When...

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    Yes, I Might Have

    by  • September 14, 2010 • trademark

    Petitioners, circa 1988 John Welch at the TTABlog added a new category, “Would You Have Petitioned?” In the case of Augustine’s Spiritual Goods, Inc. v. Augustine’s Eternal Gifts, LLC, maybe I would have. The decision as argued and decided was a no-brainer, but it looks like there’s a disconnect between the case that was...

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    Fraud is Very Popular

    by  • August 25, 2010 • trademark

    John Welch at the TTABlog asks, would you have opposed? It’s another case where a claim of fraud was premised on the theory that the applicant wasn’t the owner of the mark. The applicant Galaxy Metal Gear, Inc. Direct Access Technology, Inc. (DAT) applied for METAL GEAR for hard drive enclosures.  It had them...

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    Fraud is Really Hard to Prove

    by  • August 14, 2010 • trademark

    The TTABlog reports on a case involving a fairly common type of dispute, between a manufacturer and importer, albeit with a twist.  I’ll elaborate a little more on the claim that relates to the ownership of the mark. The importer was the registrant of the mark ZYTNIA for vodka; the Polish manufacturer filed a...

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    Meet Those Who Blog

    by  • April 21, 2010 • Uncategorized

    The wait is over – we have the Official Announcement from the TTABlog for this year’s Meet the Bloggers (VI, for those keeping count), although we are still anxiously awaiting the moniker assigned this year by the Trademark Blog (back story here). Yours truly has the honor of co-hosting this year, still riding the...

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