trademark registration

  • Fifty Dollars a Signature: The Continued Rise of Trademark Filing Mills

    Fifty Dollars a Signature: The Continued Rise of Trademark Filing Mills

    Anthony Cartee

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    Fifty dollars a signature. That’s what one company offered me for putting my name, and my law license, on up to 150 U.S. trademark applications a month. I said no. A few attorneys who get that same offer don’t. What They Were Actually Asking For This wasn’t really an offer to hire an attorney. It was an offer to rent one. Click approve, and their system would enter all the application information and file with the USPTO, no real review required beyond that single click. Three to five minutes per case, they told me, and the status updates would take… Read More

  • Nominative Fair Use: One Defense Against a Brand Bully

    Nominative Fair Use: One Defense Against a Brand Bully

    Anthony Cartee

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    Understanding Brand Bullies On top of today’s extremely competitive market, small businesses may be also dealing with a “brand bully.” Also known as a trademark bully, a brand bully is a company that resorts to litigation and uses its trademark rights to harass and intimidate another business without a sound legal basis. These companies often file oppositions against marks or the use of their alleged mark that would not directly or substantially damage them. The brand bullies primarily rely on their “fame” or “strength” of their marks, and the smaller business’s lack of resources for prolonged litigation. Typically, these brand… Read More

  • Do Two Generics Make a Trademark Registration?

    Do Two Generics Make a Trademark Registration?

    Anthony Cartee

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    SCOTUS Ruling In USPTO v. Booking.com Opens The Door For Generic Domain Owners To Register Their Trademark The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has believed that “generic.com” domain names were almost always generic and therefore not registrable under trademark law. However, the Supreme Court’s nearly unanimous decision in USPTO v. Booking.com (2020) 591 U.S. ___, earlier this year has rejected that per se rule, which means such generic combinations have the potential to become protectable trademarks. Under the Lanham Act, a mark must be distinctive in order to obtain protection. As such, generic terms alone cannot be protected as… Read More