Graham Crackers—the ubiquitous, rectangular-shaped snack crackers with air holes and perforations—occupy a unique niche in American snack food lore. In the 1830s, the Rev. Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister from Connecticut, became a ferocious advocate of healthy living. Among other things, he invented his “Graham…
As we wrote in Part 1 of this series, the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“TMA”) was signed into law on December 27, 2020, and contained several significant amendments to the Lanham Act. This post will cover three of the legislative changes, all pertaining to…
Rupp v. Courier-Journal, Inc. involves a dispute between the makers of DERBY-PIE®—a trademarked chocolate-nut pie—and a local newspaper that published two articles about other businesses creating other chocolate-nut desserts. Departing somewhat from its own ruling decades earlier in a separate case involving “Derby pie,” the…
One of the many reasons the year 2020 will be memorable is for the social justice movements and demonstrations that have inspired a flood of new trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A recent search of the USPTO database revealed that there…
Many industries were negatively impacted by the pandemic in 2020, but one industry that continues to grow is the influencer marketing industry. The influencer marketing model typically involves agreements between companies and influencers, where the influencer creates content promoting companies’ products for posts on social…
After a fair amount of end-of-year legislative drama, the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“TMA”) was signed into law on December 27, 2020 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2021, which also included needed funding for COVID-19 relief and support. The text of…
Just in time to steal ComicMix’s Christmas, the Ninth Circuit recently held that the bookmaker’s mashup story Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! (which combines elements of the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! with Star Trek) is not a defensible fair use…
The impact of COVID-19 restrictions and precautions, combined with trending consumer preferences to shop online, is fueling bankruptcy filings of well-known brick-and-mortar brands. As customers bid farewell to fond strip mall haunts, savvy and imaginative purchasers reap the benefits by snapping up household names like…
Last week we quickly pivoted from watching the 24/7 “Map Show” to spending our screen time learning at the ANA 2020 Marketing Law Conference. It was a great three days in Chicago in our pajamas of educational seminars. If you didn’t make it this year,…
Does the Lanham Act require a plaintiff to show a likelihood of confusion to prevail on a counterfeiting claim? And if so, should the court simply compare the marks at issue, or look beyond them to the products themselves and other marketplace factors bearing on…
Jeffrey CadwellJeff advises clients on the availability, registrability, and stre...
Michael KeyesJ. Michael Keyes is an intellectual property attorney with exten...
Kaleb McNeelyAs a partner in the Trial Group, Kaleb practices primarily in the ...
Sarah RobertsonSarah has over fifteen years’ experience helping clients prot...
Fara SunderjiFara assists clients in the development and execution of all type...
Charlene KroghCharlene Krogh is a Partner in Dorsey’s top-ranked Tradem...
Evan EveristEvan is a partner in Dorsey’s Trademark, Copyright and Adverti...
