When a company decides to invest in or acquire another business, they do extensive checking into what precisely they are buying. This can range from counting the towels and silverware owned by a hotel chain to calculating the validity and future value of a customer list. Lawyers call this “due diligence” and it is an…
A Shady Challenge to A Sunglass Company’s IP The world of fashion and beauty is intensely competitive – sometimes ruthlessly so. But there are occasions the competition slides into the bizzaro-world, when one designer challenges the legitimate trademark of another house just to sideswipe the rival. The outcome of just such a dispute is an…
Coke Zero’s Out on Coke Zero Trademark Sometimes, even a Fortune 100 company can get in trouble over a trademark protection. Coca Cola’s fastest growing brand is its sugar-free Coke Zero, filing some filed 17 trademark registrations over the years to protect the name. But the Dr. Pepper-Snapple Group contested the registrations, claiming the word…
Today, the world is filled with so-called “trademark bullies,” large companies that seem to take a perverse pleasure in going after the trademarks of small companies, sometimes because a portion of a mark incorporates a portion of what the competitor feels is theirs but often on specious grounds. In fact, several websites devoted to exposing…
In a new study of the counterfeit cosmetics industry released in early June 2018, Red Points Solutions S.I. revealed that more than 40-percent of the makeup offerings in Facebook ads and on so-called “company pages” were for fake products as were 30-percent of the cosmetics sites on eBay and 10-percent on Instagram. A scattering of…
When President Trump announced a series of steep, punitive tariffs against China, much of the media’s attention was on how they will hurt American businesses and consumers the most. But alleged intellectual property theft by both private and state-owned enterprises in the P.R.C. has raised the ire of Washington for a long time. Chinese businesses…
Marcus S. Harris Law Journal Newsletters Marcus Harris authors article on registering and protecting product packaging trademarks. The article explains trade dress and ways to determine if particular packaging can be protected. Marcus also explains strategies to increase the likelihood of a successful trade dress registration and protection. To read the full article, click here.
In a previous post, we described a lawsuit filed by Rosetta Stone against competitors for “piggybacking” Rosetta Stone’s trademarks in an attempt to divert website traffic. CNet columnist Matt Asay analogizes this situation to an open source problem here. The open source software development culture thrives on access and sharing of oftentimes copyrightable source code. …
Earlier this week, CNN.com published a story detailing how Chinese fakes were cashing in on what CNN termed “Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones bonanza.” Link here. According to a World Customs Organization report cited by CNN nearly 70% of all fake goods – including clothing, DVDs, and electronic goods – seized worldwide from 2008 – 2010 came…
The red bottoms of Christian Louboutin shoes make each pair instantly recognizable; Christian Louboutin filed a lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent for trademark infringement when the brand’s 2011 shoe collection featured shoes with red bottoms. Louboutin claims that the shoes are virtually identical and are likely to confuse consumers. Despite the fact that the USPTO…